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Will this drug treat republicanism?

Professor Julian Savulescu is breaking new bioethical ground at Oxford. Aas the head of something called the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. He argues for performance enhancing drugs in sport, genetic screening, early abortion, late-term abortion, sex-selective abortion, embryonic stem cell research, hybrid embryos, saviour siblings, therapeutic cloning, reproductive cloning, genetic engineering of children for higher IQs, eugenics, and organ markets.

Article in Psychopharmacology  suggests the possibility of a cure for bigotry!

Well maybe not a cure, but imagine where this could lead?  If we can modify racism, maybe we can “treat” republicans so they become rational?

Professor Julian Savulescu of Oxford University’s Faculty of Philosophy, a co-author of the study, said: “Such research raises the tantalising possibility that our unconscious racial attitudes could be modulated by using drugs, a possibility that requires careful ethical analysis.”
The study involved 18 people given propanolol whose responses to a series of questions were compared with those from 18 given a placebo.
Savulescu goes on to say “ Propranolol is not a pill to cure racism. But given that many people are already using drugs like propranolol which have ‘moral’ side effects, we at least need to better understand what these effects are.”

   Subjects were shown black and white faces and asked to sort them as quickly as possible  to positive and negative categories. The findings showed the drug abolished implicit racial bias.

Chris Chambers, Senior Research Fellow at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, said the finding was “remarkable” but should be viewed with “extreme caution”.   read more at The Independent

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Posted 01 Jun 2012 by theaveeditor in Misc., Science

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