Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
bcohen | July 28, 2006[When we last left our dueling bloggers, they were reading Erik Reece's Death of a Mountain. And now, part 2, as continued from the first part of the conversation, wherein -- beyond the Reece article -- the bloggers made mention of mountains, their Appalachian disappearance, the new availability of golfing in West Virginia and Kentucky, the new opportunity to land planes safely on formerly hilly terrain, and the questions oddly left unasked about coal, energy, and where we get it.]
DN: You know that article is quite the eye-opener. And it's some of the smaller statements like the following…
bcohen | July 24, 2006A: Probably.
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DN: So Ben, what's up with those mountain tops?
BRC: They're fewer than there used to be, that's what I know.
DN: Less places to ski and stuff?
BRC: But many more places to golf, apparently.
DN: Ben, is that for real? Mountain top removal for coal, for golf, for kicks, apparently? When I first asked, I was actually referring to a scene in the new Superman movie, but this I'm guessing is non-fiction. Why on earth are they doing this? It seems like an awful lot of effort.
BRC: It is, my Canadian co-blogger, for real. But it's less work than hiring a bunch of West…
worldsfair | July 19, 2006Recently, I took out three of my colleagues for lunch. These were folk who were brave enough to take the plunge and participate in an opportunity to travel to Nigeria. Here, they would teach a course on molecular genetics to burgeoning Ph.D students, Faculty and the like in the vicinity of Lagos. Although, the collaboration between the institutes in Nigeria, and my own lab is informal at best, it's something that I felt a lot of responsiblity towards, particularily to these three individuals, so basically I had that breath of relief when they recently returned to Canada. It's funny, they'…
bcohen | July 18, 2006The book Rebuilt, by Michae Chorost, and the documentary Sound and Fury, by Josh Aronson, here re-considered. (This is a Bookshelf #1 revisitation and expansion.) ((No reason for mentioning Jerry Falwell, by the way. That was a typo.))
I finished Rebuilt, about cochlear implants and technology-society relationships and deaf culture and the Bionic Man and cyborg philosophy. Here are some tidbits.
Rebuilt is about cochlear implants. They put a thing in your head, behind your ear. You can then hear. Or have sounds transmitted to your brain, through the device. "You can then hear." Some…
worldsfair | June 28, 2006Yesterday, Ghana, the last remaining African team in contention, was eliminated from the World Cup. This was after a entertaining match against the heavy favourites Brazil, that ended predictably where Brazil powered over with a 3-0 victory. This followed the earlier elimination of Togo and Cote d'Ivoire in group standings the week before. It seems, like life in general, these teams just couldn't get a break.
Especially so, since for each of these teams, admission to the pinnacle event of the 'beautifiul game,' meant a little extra sanity into their society.
For instance, the team of…
bcohen | June 27, 2006Janet, as seems to be the norm, has another interesting thread going on at Adventures in Science and Ethics, about searching for biological bases for homosexuality. I did an interview for The Believer recently with a historian and philosopher of sexuality, Arnold Davidson, who's at the University of Chicago (and the University of Pisa too, actually). The interview hits on the subject at hand by putting questions about science and sexuality into historical context. It's an interesting piece, I think. Go, go. Go check it out. Look at that, twice linked in a mere three lines.
And as for…
bcohen | June 27, 2006This is a tell-all from one of the mice in the trenches. It in fact stands as a historical document, the first published piece co-written by Ng and Cohen (back in the Spring). And it's a pin-up, for your own home and office and car and garage and lab. And bunker.
People Magazine says, "A must read!" Sean Hannity says, "More evidence why the liberals are taking down America!" Stephen Hawking says, "Would. You. Like. To. Play. A. Game?"
It's also a re-post, of sorts, reappearing after its first entry onto the world stage at The Science Creative Quarterly, and then circulating thereafter…
worldsfair | June 24, 2006Maybe this will also help with this week's "Ask a Sciencebloggers question." Most institutions will likely ask for a teaching philosophy, especially when an academic is up for tenure promotion. Although mine was written in 2003, and my interests have expanded significantly, here it is below:
To Whom It May Concern:
My teaching philosophy is largely grounded in the belief that effective education is a major cornerstone in the development of individuals within a society. Whether this pertains specifically to junior/senior scientists about to embark on new research initiatives or generally…
bcohen | June 23, 2006I posted a reply to a reply over at Janet's Adventures in Ethics and Science, but it had typos and I guess I'm supposed to traffic these things back to the home base here anyway. So, here's the non-typoed version of my reply to a reply to the topic: "reasons scientists give for not thinking about ethics."
It's always fascinating to me when students -- engineers, mostly, for me -- use the "ethics is anti-individualist" response that Lab Lemming gives (to the original post, which I already gave you the link to, above): "The idea of group ethics requires assent to some sort of group-think,…