From the NY Times Biologists in the United States and Europe are developing a revolutionary genetic technique that promises to provide an unprecedented degree of control over insect-borne diseases and crop pests. The technique involves a mechanism called a gene drive system, which propels a gene of [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Research Ethics and Hype’
December 1st, 2014 - 12:26 pm § in Uncategorized
Scientists revolt against one of Europe’s most ambitious research projects
Dissenters are threatening to boycott a $1.6 billion attempt to simulate the brain’s workings. from the Global Post: — If it’s true, as the saying goes, that politics in academia are especially vicious because the stakes are so low, raising the ante doesn’t always seem to improve [...]
January 27th, 2014 - 4:30 am § in Politics, Schools & Colleges
UPDATE: A Response to OpEds on GWU
Public-University Group Offers Alternative to Obama’s College-Rating Plan This article in The Chronicle raises the very important issue of standards. Sadly, while this debate is being focused n universities tha[...]
The (Mad) Scientist
By Hannah Waters, The Scientist Mad science has always fascinated the public, but that isn’t why Jim Fields, video producer and journalist for Time Magazine, decided to make the documentary, A: Head, B: Body, about White. “I’m intrigued more by him than anything he particularly [...]
Gay Marriage
“The state does not ‘own’ the institution of marriage. Nor does the church. The honourable estate of matrimony precedes both the state and the church, and neither of these institutions have the right to redefine it in such a fundamental way. If marriage is redefined, those who believe in t[...]
February 28th, 2012 - 12:49 am § in Religion, The Ave Scene
Reconciliation: Faust comes to science.
Scientific Spirit How romantics and technophiles can reconcile our love-hate relationship with scientific progress by Joseph Grosso Published in the March/April 2011 Humanist ShareThis In March 2009 headlines blared across the front pages of New York’s Daily News that were at once stimulating, sca[...]
IRB Extremism
Institutional Review Boards Overstepping Their Roles … from Gwendolyn Bradley The AAUP recently submitted comments to the Department of Health and Human Services in response to proposed new rule making on institutional review boards, the campus bodies that oversee research on human subjects[...]
Medical Research During Slavery