When promising technologies see the light, it can be difficult to make sound predictions about their future utility. Technical breakthroughs that promise to transform society tend to bewitch the mind. Their tremendous potential begs for interpretation by more dreamlike imaginary powers. When nuclear power was young, for example, the impact this new technology promised to have on […]
Continue readingPage 49 of 51
How should one respond when ethicists publish arguments in favor of infanticide? In the current issue of Journal of Medical Ethics, two philosophers argue that what they call “after-birth abortion” should be permissible in all cases where abortion is (even when the newborn is healthy). Not surprisingly, soon after BioEdge covered the article, the news […]
Continue readingWill new Swedish rules for research registers enable LifeGene to continue? In December 2011, the Swedish Data Inspection Board (DI) decided that the large biobank investment LifeGene is against the law. In its motivation, DI focused on the purpose of the data collection and the information to participants about this purpose. According to DI, LifeGene’s purpose […]
Continue readingOne of the ethical difficulties that confront biobank and genomics research concerns the communication of results to participants. Should biobank participants be given feedback from research? If so, under what conditions? A recent article in the European Journal of Human Genetics reports a survey of Dutch biobank researchers’ opinions on the issue. Here are some […]
Continue readingAre you interested in questions about consciousness? Would you like to participate in a conference on the subject, but cannot get on a plane? Why not participate in the fourth online consciousness conference, organized by Richard Brown! The conference is free of charge. Pär Segerdahl
Continue readingDuring the past century, a series of optimistic researchers set out to teach language to apes. This could have been no more than a queer expression of human naiveté… if it wasn’t for the fact that one of them succeeded. Who succeeded? The one who avoided teaching the apes! Why did the one who avoided […]
Continue readingPrivacy concerns and public health endeavours sometimes clash with each other. A recent example comes from the state of Minnesota. After a ruling from the state’s supreme court, one has begun to destroy blood samples taken routinely from newborns in a screening program. The practice is seen as a violation of privacy, since consent was […]
Continue readingParadoxically, the victim can have the most powerful position, namely, as a “rhetorical figure.” I sense this rhetorical power in Rebecca Skloot’s bestselling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I think less freely under the spell of this rhetoric. My thoughts are not allowed to discover new aspects of things. Questions are being silenced […]
Continue readingCreating biobanks for future research is sometimes debated as if such investments seriously threatened sample donors’ integrity. In Sweden, the Data Inspection Board even decided that it is against the law to collect biological samples and personal health data “for future research.” Participants cannot give their consent to anything that vague, they argued. This distrustfulness […]
Continue readingChildren pose a dizzyingly difficult problem for research ethics. One of the most important tasks of research ethics is the protection of human research participants. This significant aim is realized above all through the requirement of proper information and consent procedures. But children often cannot be protected though these means. They are too young to […]
Continue readingTHE ETHICS BLOG
A research blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)
We write for researchers, healthcare staff, officials, politicians, patient organisations and anyone interested in ethics.
We comment on the research ethics and bioethics debate and discuss our own research. We address issues from current debates in the research community and in the press.
MEET THE EDITOR
Pär Segerdahl is editor of the Ethics Blog and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics.