Look, I know that Twitter really isn’t the place for nuanced debate. But, by that token, everyone else should realise that as well – especially intellectual superstars. So how, then, to explain Richard Dawkins’ spectacular foot-in-mouth moment earlier today? It started off reasonably enough, with him tweeting about Catholicism’s stance on abortion and providing a […]
Category: WTF?
How Not to Argue against a Proposed Law
Yes, yes: it’s tedious and internecine, but it’s almost a year since I had a pop at Kevin Yuill’s book on assisted dying; how about an update? Well, conveniently, there’s this, in which he tries “to convince my fellow liberal minded atheists to reconsider their support for legalized assisted dying”. OK, then. First up, this isn’t […]
Who’s the SilLIer?
It’s funny how things come together sometimes. A few months ago, I mentioned a slightly strange JAMA paper that suggested that non-compliance with treatment regimes should be treated as a treatable condition in its own right. The subtext there was fairly clear: that there’s potential scope for what we might term “psychiatric mission-creep”, whereby behaviour gets […]
Some stories, if true,
just don’t need additional comment: The Italian woman was sedated and her baby delivered against her will, after Essex social services obtained a court order in August 2012 for the birth “to be enforced by way of caesarean section”. […] After the C-section, the woman, who has two other children and is divorced, was sent […]
From the File Marked “This Can’t End Well”
… and cross-referenced with the file marked “You Wouldn’t Let It Lie”. Francesca Minerva has a paper in Bioethics in which she refers – none-too-obliquely – to the furore surrounding The Paper Of Which We Do Not Speak. Her central claim is that there is a threat to academic freedom posed by modern communications, inasmuch […]
Under-Treatment, Treated.
Right: file this paper from the JAMA under “Properly Odd”. It’s a proposal that nonadherence to a treatment regime be classed as a treatable medical condition in its own right. No, really. Look at the title: “Medication Nonadherence: A Diagnosable and Treatable Medical Condition”. Starting from the fairly straightforward premise that non-adherence to treatment regimes is “a […]
But that’s not what it says, is it?
Today’s blast of righteous indignation is directed towards New Mexico. House Bill 206 says, in essence, that… well, it’s short, so here it is in full: HOUSE BILL 206 51ST LEGISLATURE – STATE OF NEW MEXICO – FIRST SESSION, 2013 INTRODUCED BY Cathrynn N. Brown AN ACT RELATING TO CRIMINAL LAW; SPECIFYING PROCURING OF AN ABORTION AS TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE IN CASES […]
198!
Seriously! Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics has published a paper with a hundred and ninety-eight listed authors! I’ve always been slightly puzzled by multi-authored papers – by just how many people get to add their names to a piece of work. A friend of mine who is a proper scientist once tried to explain how it works in […]
Junk food feeders are criminal child abusers? Really?
By David Hunter Public Service Announcement: Sensitivity Advisory Sticker – Caution Post contains sarcasm. In the interests of our more sensitive readers not taking offence I recommend they skip this post on the grounds that it will contain gentle sarcasm, disagreement and a certain amount of me asking “Is that really what they mean to […]
In Defence of Live Tweeting
Questions to which the Answer is Eh? What are you on about? No, really: what?, part 2: Should people who live-tweet conferences be thrown out and barred from future conferences? A story in IHE that concerned a debate (well, I say “debate”, but it was clearly a slow news day…) about the rights and wrongs of live-tweeting […]