The increasingly-tabloid Freethinker is running an indignant story about how – apparently – rules about bare arms have allegedly been relaxed for Muslim staff within the NHS (scroll down a bit – they’re indignant about quite a lot). Female staff who follow the Islamic faith will be allowed to cover their arms to preserve their modesty […]
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Slightly Gratuitous Abuse of the Blog…
Someone’s just asked me if it’d be possible to design a virus specifically to kill people with a certain given genetic signature. I have a feeling that the South African security services tried to cook up an ethnically specific biological agent in the ’80s, but am not sure whether this is an urban myth. Any […]
The Slow Death of the ACMD
One of the most galling political sights of the last few months – and there’s been quite a range – has been the slow collapse of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in the wake of the Nutt farrago. Ever since David Nutt had the temerity to bring facts to the table in […]
Visit Jonathan Glover’s web-site
Anyone in the bioethics business will know Jonathan Glover as one of the nicest and most insightful philosophers around, as well as one of the fathers of modern bioethics. Jonathan now has his own web-site www.jonathanglover.co.uk which is well worth a visit. The picture on the homepage shows that he shares my belief in the […]
Is there an Election Due?
So: Alan Johnson has announced that he’s going to stop people using mephedrone… no, wait: that’s not it… make mephedrone use as safe as possible… no, that’s not it either… prevent the price of mephedrone rising and thereby increasing the likelihood of petty crime… close, but not quite… make sure that people can get hold […]
Conference: Beyond the Body? Perspectives on Enhancement
The Wellcome Trust Programme ‘The Human Body: its scope limits and future’ will be holding a two day conference titled ‘Beyond the Body? Perspectives on Enhancement’ in Manchester from 9th to the 11th April 2010. […]
Concord in Ethics and Bioethics
Over at Pea Soup, Ralph Wedgwood makes an interesting claim: I suspect that on several issues that are the focus of fierce moral controversies today – such as homosexuality and the death penalty – there is significantly less disagreement among contemporary philosophers than in the population as a whole. Indeed, I tentatively suggest, the historical […]
Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele PGT Open Day – Updated
The Centre for Professional Ethics & the School of Law at Keele University would like to invite you to attend their postgraduate taught courses open day on the 31st of March – between 4:30 pm and 7:00 pm at the Claus Moser Research Centre, Keele University. Update: Details of the event can be found here: […]
Ethical Issues in Infectious Disease Control Workshop 22nd of April – Centre for Professional Ethics, Keele University.
The Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele like to announce a Wellcome Trust funded workshop to be held at Keele University on the 22nd of April focusing on the ethical issues raised by infectious disease control. […]
On the subject of Mephedrone…
I think that it’s worth pointing out that the way the media have handled mephedrone has been generally pathetic. This is not wholly a surprise, because the way the media handle any drugs story tends towards the pathetic. […]