Bioethics

The other inconvenient truth

March 5, 2014
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Johnathan Foley is director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. He recently received a Heinz Award, which is given annually to people who improve the human condition and environment through work in areas ranging from poverty alleviation to the arts and sciences. The award citation for Foley begins as follows: A scientist on the leading edge of understanding global ecosystems and the study of complex environmental systems, Jonathan Foley, Ph.D., has dedicated his career to examining and finding solutions for the challenge of feeding an ever-growing population while at the same time protecting our planet…

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The future of the human species

February 25, 2014
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Today’s headlines from the political left and right form a striking diptych that surely tells us something about the future of the human species. From Truthout comes this article, The March of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, providing the sombre and sober truth about the state of the environment on planet Earth. While most of us do our best to ignore them, the signs of catastrophic climate change are all around us. This article does a good job of detailing several of the most recent signs and driving home the point that we are probably long past the point of no return…

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Should animals be off the menu? (a public debate)

May 18, 2013
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The official description of the debate: Do you eat meat? Did you know you are in the minority? Out of an audience of hundreds, 73.6% agreed meat should be off the menu – find out why, then ask yourself if you are making the right choice. Intelligence Squared‘s 2012 series of debates kicked off with a look at the ethics of eating meat. Six speakers are divided into two teams for lively and insightful arguments for and against the proposition, ‘Animals Should Be Off the Menu’. Speaking for the proposition are Peter Singer, Philip Wollen and Veronica Ridge; against it, Adrian Richardson,…

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Singer on religious freedom

June 28, 2012
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Peter Singer has penned an excellent article for Project Syndicate entitled “The Use and Abuse of Religious Freedom.” The background for the article is a recent proposal of the Party for the Animals, the only animal-rights party to be represented in a national parliament. The party has proposed a law requiring that all animals in the Netherlands be stunned before slaughter. In response to this proposal Islamic and Jewish leaders have united and spoken out in defense of their religious freedom, because their religious doctrines prohibit eating meat from animals that are not conscious when killed. But would the proposed law,…

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Recent thoughts on the climate crisis

June 27, 2012
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A small sample of some the important things that have been said recently on the state of the climate crisis and the failures of political leaders to address the root causes or even acknowledge the seriousness of the problem: 1. Democracy Now interview with Bill McKibben (environmentalist, author, founder of the remarkable grassroots climate campaign 350.org) 2. Approaching a state shift in the Earth’s biosphere (ground-breaking article in Nature written by over 20 environmental scientists) 3. Is humanity pushing Earth past a tipping point? (a simplified, less technical summary of the aforementioned article in Wired magazine) 4. Democracy Now interview…

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Global Land Grab (by Terry Allen)

June 25, 2012
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Global Land Grab by Terry Allen, senior editor at In These Times, documents and analyzes the attempts that certain countries (primarily China, India and South Korea) are making to purchase tens of millions of acres of farmland from some of the poorest countries in Africa, South American, and South Asia to grow crops for export. What is taking place is, in effect, a new form of colonialism under the guise of business transactions. Allen writes: The “new colonialism” is less like a crusade and more like an ordinary business transaction floated on a promise of “win-win.” The deal-makers include international agribusinesses, investment banks,…

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Population control or population justice?

June 25, 2012
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Over at the National Radio Project, another amazing example of independent media with a social conscience, there is a fascinating audio segment on the question of population control within the context of environmental sustainability (Population Control or Population Justice?). It is (one hopes) becoming increasingly clear that limitless economic expansion is not possible on a planet of finite resources and that if environmental catastrophe is to be avoided human societies need to radically overhaul their economies and abandon the fixation on economic growth. Hence the increasing interest in the concept of de-growth among ecologically oriented economists, people like Herman Daly and…

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Dean Ornish and enlightened ethical egoism

May 28, 2012
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Ethical egoism is the philosophical theory that people should always act in their own self-interest, that when faced with choices between what’s good for oneself and what’s good for others, one should always place one’s own interests first. One of the chief exponents of this view was Ayn Rand, who influenced a generation of powerful people, including Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, each of whom helped to push forward the neoliberalist agenda that has dominated social and political life since the 1980s. At the heart of neoliberalist philosophy is the idea that greed is good, not just…

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Business with a conscience

May 19, 2012
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Every corporation, now matter how socially or environmentally destructive, presents itself as doing something good for consumers, for communities, for the species, or even the planet. Monsanto, for instance, claims to be all about “improving lives” (though notice they don’t say whose lives) and about “meeting the needs of today while preserving the planet for tomorrow.” This overt corporate public relations bullshit (I know that you know that I don’t believe this but I’m going to pretend I do because that’s how I make a lot of money) has led to such profound cynicism that reasonable people have to wonder…

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Moral behavior in animals (TED lecture by Frans de Waal)

April 21, 2012
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Empathy, cooperation, fairness, and reciprocity are characteristics not only of (some) humans, but also of non-human animals. In this lecture Frans de Waal shares some surprising videos of behavioral tests on primates and other mammals that demonstrate that altruism is not a uniquely human phenomenon. This point is both intrinsically interesting and significant for its implications regarding debates on the nature of morality and the connection between morality and religion. While many theists see their religion or deity as the source of morality, these animal studies suggest otherwise, that morality, like all other forms of human and animal behavior, has evolved…

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The meat-free diet catches on in Korea

April 11, 2012
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Anyone familiar with traditional Korean food will find it hard to understand why modern Koreans ever switched to the “standard american diet” (SAD), for much of the traditional diet is amazingly good food, both from a gastronomical and a health perspective. And the traditional Korean diet just so happens to involve very little meat. The good news though, as this Yonhap News article points out, is that the return to a vegetarian diet is quickly catching on in Korea. This will be interesting to watch, because when social change happens in Korea, it really happens quickly.  

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Dying in 21st century (TED lecture by Peter Saul)

March 29, 2012
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This talk was given by Peter Saul at the independently organized TED event in Newy, Australia. The original description reads: Peter Saul is Senior Intensivist in the adult and paediatric ICU at John Hunter Hospital, and Director of Intensive Care at Newcastle Private Hospital. Having trained in Cambridge, London, Sydney and Harvard, he came to Newcastle to help start up the new ICU at John Hunter, and never left. He has been accused of being an “ethicist”, which he tries to deny, but does admit to having been Head of Discipline for Medical Ethics at Newcastle University in the past,…

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Finally some good news for the cows

March 28, 2012
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Finally some good news for the cows

A long-term study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health and published recently in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that eating red meat of any type in any amount significantly increases the risk of premature death. While a subscription to the journal is required to access it online, one can read about the study in this article from the L.A. Times. The news article also links to the chart copied below, which presents the findings of this study in graphic form. As the chart shows, the study found that adding a small serving of red meat to one’s daily…

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Death with courage and dignity

March 16, 2012
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Peter Goodwin was a physician and a right-to-die activist who took his own life last week (March 11, 2012). This article from Time magazine contains a video of the last interview he conducted before his death. He was remarkably rational–even though emotional–right up to the end, and this video is well worth watching, especially for those who are opposed to euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, or the patient’s right to die.   

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The future of meat

February 28, 2012
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Over at Gizmodo there is a brief article entitled “The Future of Farming is Brain-Dead Chickens?” about a provocative art project created by an architecture student at the Royal College of Art. The project is described as follows: Architecture student André Ford has presented a very radical solution to increase the efficiency and humaneness in raising poultry. Under his plan, birds would have their frontal cortexes surgically severed, rendering the animals permanently unconscious with no zero sensory input while maintaining their lower brain functions—breathing and such—so that they continue to grow. The form and function of a chicken plant would change…

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Advancing animal rights

February 1, 2012
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It’s a small step, but a step in the right direction. All 27 countries of the European Union recently agreed to ban the inhuman practice of  raising chickens in cages that are too small for them to flap their wings. Peter Singer provides a nice description of this modest but significant advance here.

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Greenpeace gets China to drop GE rice

February 1, 2012
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How they did it is an amazing story, with implications for other environmental causes and progressive movements. You can read about, straight from the horse’s mouth here.

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Supreme Court might legalize medical patents

December 9, 2011
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On the 7th December, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that raises a fundamental question of whether a physician can infringe a patent merely by using scientific research to inform her treatment decisions. ars technica covered the matter quite well:  Prometheus (the company responsible for the particular case) claims much more than its specific testing process. It claims a physician administering thiopurine to a patient can infringe its patent merely by being aware of the scientific correlation disclosed in the patent—even if the doctor doesn’t act on the patent’s recommendations.  The extraordinary claim prompted a broad coalition…

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Video: A Farm for the Future

August 9, 2011
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The BBC describes the documentary A Farm for the Future as follows: Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year’s high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just…

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