Blackford/Schuklenk interviewed about 50 Voices of Disbelief

from: examiner.com

50 Voices of Disbelief, an interview with Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk

by

Viktor Nagornyy

Go to Viktor's Home Page

Have you ever wondered why Michael Shermer is an atheist, or Margaret Downey, or A.C. Grayling, or James Randi, or Victor Stenger, or many other well known atheists? You will be able to find out this coming fall. The new book “50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists” by Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk is a collection of essays by some of the most prominent on why they are atheists. Inspirational stories and philosophical monologues will provide a doorway into the author’s life, and shed some light on their journey to the land of non-belief.

Both authors agreed to a small interview to tell readers more about their book and why they’ve decided to create it. If you’re intrigued by this book, read this interview and you will see that it is a must read for any atheist. If you’re still hiding in the “closet”, this book will inspire and give you energy to kick the door open and tell everyone that you’re an atheist. Just think about it, reading these stories is like having conversations with Austin Dacey, Peter Singer, Lori Lipman Brown, and many more. Why not immerse yourself into the lives of your favorite authors and people you admire?

Udo Schuklenk. Photo credit: Landry Karege

Whose initial idea was it to create this book and why?

Udo: I think it was my idea. I have been involved in academic publishing for some 15 years or so by now and at one point one gets a reasonable sense for what might or might not work in the market place. We have seen a series of monographs by folks like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, all of which were wildly successful. It seems the time is ripe for a project where high-profile people from all walks of public life are given an opportunity to declare their disbelief, as well as their reasons for not buying into the fairy tale of an all-knowing, all-powerful, good God. I guess my main motive was some kind of frustration (that’s putting it mildly) about religious people’s published musings about how they "struggled to find God" only to eventually succumb to the delusions we all know too well. It seemed only fair game to me to let reality-based people explain why they did better.

Russell: Yes, it was Udo's idea. Of course, I jumped at it when he asked me to come on board. I was enthusiastic about the idea and flattered that he thought my skills would be useful.

Russell Blackford. Courtesy of Russell Blackford.

How did Russell get involved in this project?

Udo: Russell and I knew each other professionally. He and I studied and worked at one point at Monash University, both of us work within bioethics, and both of us are known atheists. I asked him how he felt about putting together an anthology of Voices of Disbelief (the title was conceived in the end by Russell), and it didn’t take much to persuade him that this was a viable project.

Russell, on your blog you mentioned that the book was originally called Voices of Disbelief. Did the publisher recommend a different title or was there something else that brought the change?

Russell: Voices of Disbelief was our working title for most of the project, but we discussed a number of possible variations even during the earliest phases, before we found a publisher. At one stage we were thinking of something like Why I Am Not A Believer: Voices of Disbelief. Throughout the process of putting the book together, we returned from time to time to the question of the final title - in discussions with each other, with editorial staff at Wiley-Blackwell, and, on a few occasions, in talking to individual contributors.

The important thing, was to have something punchy and commercially attractive, while also emphasizing the many and diverse perspectives, or "voices", included in the book. The specific reference to atheism in thre sub-title was proposed by Wiley-Blackwell staff, insofar as it signals that the book contributes to the same debate about religion as the so-called "New Atheist" books of Richard Dawkins and others whom Udo has mentioned – though there's a question about what the New Atheism really is …

Also, it became apparent towards the end of the work on the book - as we got a clearer and clearer idea of the final line-up - that the eventual number of contributors/essays would be very close to exactly fifty, a nice round number. We've actually ended up with fifty essays, fifty contributors in addition to the two editors, and fifty-two contributors in total (since each editor has written an essay, but two of the essays have two co-authors each).

Along with the folks at Wiley-Blackwell, we brainstormed several variations of these elements, as well as some possible titles that would have been quite different. The way I remember it, I made a suggestion at the end that involved using the "50" on the cover, though I didn't actually mean as part of the title. The final title was a version of my suggestion that then came back from the folks at Wiley-Blackwell. It brought together everything that we'd been talking about. We signed off on that version straight away. It felt right to both of us.

People say don't judge the book by its cover, but before we get inside the book we need to know what the cover represents. From my research I understand that there was another cover considered, a collage of images of contributors. Why a blown out candle with smoke floating off to the side?

Udo: My own preference was for a cover featuring thumbnail images of each contributor, but we faced logistical difficulties getting those organized. Also, the publishers’ marketing people were probably rightly concerned that this just wasn’t a striking enough cover design to motivate people perusing books in bookstores to pick up the volume and open it.

The flickering candle is normally understood as a symbol of believers’ connection with their imaginary God. Our intention, of course, is to sever that link and accordingly we blew the candle out on our cover. I am curious whether people who see the cover will see it that way…

Russell: There may be some confusion around arising from the fact that Roy Natian was kind enough to put together a very simple collage of some of the contributors to go on the book's Facebook group, pending the final cover being decided. But the Facebook image that Roy created was only a place marker, and we never looked at an actual cover along those lines – as Udo says, it was logistically difficult to do it properly. We actually considered a large number of images, but settled on the candle design for its power and for its classy appearance.

Actually, though, I don't "read" the symbolism in the way that Udo describes. I expect that that will be how most people see it initially, but I hope they'll then do a cognitive shift to seeing it as the candle of reason or Enlightenment, which is blown out in so many places and circumstances by religious nonsense. As we say in the book's introduction, it is very difficult to keep the candle of reason alight at a time when unreason in many forms is resurgent. But each essay is one small effort on behalf of the candle of reason, one contribution to keeping it alight. That reinterpretation is reinforced by the interior design: when you open the book, you see one lit candle for each essay, on the essay's first page!

This reminds me of Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”. In this book he writes,

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us-then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.

I think this is the perfect example of how a blown out candle is a result of religious superstition, invading the light of reason and logic. I’m just curious, did Carl Sagan’s popular “candle in the dark” metaphor play any role in the cover?

Russell: In my case, yes, I was aware of Sagan's imagery at the time we were choosing the cover, and of the passage you've quoted, though other authors have also used this image and I don't know whether Sagan was the first. Whether or not he was, he certainly popularized it, and the passage is one that's worth remembering and returning to from time to time.

Udo, your March 17th, 2009 blog entry mentions publication date as September 10th, but Amazon lists it as October 19th. Why was the date pushed back?

Udo: Nothing sinister here, simply small delays in the production process.

Russell: We are still looking at September 10 in the UK and October 19 in the US, but we were originally hoping for something more like August. The exact date of publication of any book is always a little bit flexible – even if a manuscript is delivered on time, which ours pretty much was, there is always a great deal that happens in the production process between then and final publication.

Is this book part of the New Atheism movement? Why or why not?

Russell: Well, what's the New Atheism movement? I think the expression is often used pejoratively to attack anyone who argues against religion. The best sense that I can make of "the New Atheism" is that it is a return of normal transmission – a return of perfectly normal and proper criticism of religion in the public sphere, after this seemed to become taboo during the 1980s and 1990s. We have to thank Dawkins and others for breaking the taboo, so in that sense I suppose the book can be seen as part of the so-called New Atheism.

But note that there's no party line that our contributors had to follow. For example, some essays express strong agreement with particular views associated with Dawkins; others, however, are critical of Dawkins. The contributors were free to express their own views about religion, the various arguments for and against it, and the future role of religious organizations, without fear that we'd attempt to get them to conform. As Udo likes to say, we're not the Vatican. Hey, we don't even agree with each other about everything, not even in this interview.

Russell, your April 7th, 2009 blog entry says, “I expect to see more and more people speaking up. There are plenty who have been holding their fire until now, as Udo Schuklenk and I found when we began to put together Voices of Disbelief .” You were talking about New Atheism, religion, and bioethics in this entry. What did you mean by “holding their fire until now”? How did this book brought this up?

Russell: In that blog post, I gave, as an example, my strong sense that many people in the bioethics community were fed up with religious meddling – what I see as a religious resistance to rational bioethics. That was only one example, but it's a good one. In matters of life and death, such as choices about reproductive technologies, abortion, euthanasia, and so on, people with views grounded in religion have demanded a kind of deference to their assumed authority. Often, they have gone a long way towards wresting the discipline of bioethics from secular philosophers.

But this is just one example of the deference that religionists have claimed, with considerable success.

All too often, religion demands and receives deference in the political sphere. And yet, over recent decades it became taboo to criticize religion strongly in public. Partly, there was an assumption among those who might be expected to oppose it, such as members of the academic Left, that secularization was inevitable, that religion was receding as a social force – so it was no longer necessary to oppose it actively. There was also a feeling that criticizing religion somehow involved a taint of Western imperialism. Remember that a large part of the intellectual output of the academic Left in recent times has been devoted to attacks on the Enlightenment and modernity. Of course, most elements of the Right (not all, but certainly most) have always found wisdom in religion. One way or another, something of a social consensus formed that religion must not be criticized and must be treated as either harmless or beneficial.

Not all of us agreed with this, but speaking out was discouraged by many elements of society. Although I chafed at this situation, I held my fire – as I put it in the blog post. I kept it to mysef. I had many reasons for this, including the fact that the various jobs that I held through most of the 1980s and 1990s until 2001 involved roles where it would have been inappropriate to speak out strongly on matters of religion. For example, I was a fairly senior public servant at one stage. But as I say in my own essay in 50 Voices of Disbelief, I also tended until about the late 1990s to subscribe to the inevitable secularization theory. It's notable that even academics and professional writers, people with great freedom to speak up and be controversial, tended not to criticize religion in any way and to frown on those who did.

Things have changed. Secular bioethicists are one group who are particularly fed up. But many events have shown that religion and its political power are not going away in a hurry. This includes the rise of Islamic terrorism, the politicization of Christian fundamentalism in the US, and the many attempts to control our private decisions on matters of how we live and die. I think that more and more people who have avoided talking about religion in public are now keen to speak out and say what they really think.

I don’t know if you’ve seen a recent episode of Bill Maher’s show but in this episode he said that “Democrats are the new Republicans.” Generally speaking we would see Republicans as the Right and Democrats as the Left, of course with some exceptions. But the point I’m trying to bring is what if this shift didn’t happen in politics? What if it was a larger shift of the Left closer to the center, while the Right began to bury itself in religious fundamentalism, which is so popular in America. This is where New Atheism comes in, it is the answer to the conservative shift of the Left. Russell, you said that new atheism is “a return to normal transmission.” Isn’t this exactly what it is? People are not used to the normal - this is why they criticize New Atheism as extreme.

Russell: I haven't seen that episode – I don't see Bill Maher's show regularly, but only if there's a particular reason – but I do agree strongly with your last point. Once it becomes taboo to discuss religion in any way other than the most deferential, or to criticise it in any way other than the most detached and impersonal, usually tucked away from the public in philosophical journals or expensive academic monographs, the point is soon reached where any kind of normal criticism of religion can be depicted as extreme. It never ceases to amaze me that Dawkins is characterized as "strident" or "extreme"; sure, he can sometimes be blunt or passionate, but most of what he says and writes is in a very courteous and measured tone, carefully qualified where needed, and often enlivened by humor. Some other authors, Christopher Hitchens among them, do go closer to the sort of robust language that is used all the time in criticising political opponents. But I resent the fact that critics of religion are branded as uncivil and destructive, often even by fellow unbelievers, and even when their tone and rhetoric might be quite mild by the standards applying everywhere else in public debate about ideas – about political agendas or economic theories, for example.

Udo: I concur with your analysis of where the Republicans and Democrats are located on the political spectrum. I always tell my US friends and colleagues that the Democratic Party in the US is probably closest to the conservative wing of the Conservative Party in my native Germany, and that the Republican Party likely would be monitored by the security services as a clear a present danger to the democratic state. The mainstream political spectrum in the USA is located much further to the right than it is in Europe and Australia/New Zeland. There is a broad consensus in the US mainstream political discourse that rails against public health care, for absolute freedom of speech, and such issues that you wouldn't find supported by most Europeans, including myself. I doubt, however, that what you call the 'New Atheism' could realistically be the answer of the political Left to this US peculiarity. The reason for this is that there are plenty of very right-wing (in economic terms, in terms of social justice etc) atheists. Vice versa, there's plenty of left-wing Christians, for instance. I am probably closer to the views of many Catholics on the issue of international justice and poverty eradication than I am to the views of libertarian atheists. In short: I doubt there is a straigtforward connection between atheism and the political Left beyond the rejection of the idea of God. To my mind that is good news. I'm perfectly happy to join forces on the God issue with atheist right-wingers. When we are done with 'God' we can have a rational debate about other political issues.

Udo, what is your experience with “holding their fire until now” statement in which Russell mentioned you?

Udo: I think this probably is country-to-country and culture-to-culture dependent. In Canada where I moved only about two years ago you have a predominantly secular society. Amongst most of my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy it's taken as a given that you are an atheist or agnostic of some kind or other. People probably wouldn’t even think it’s worth speaking out about this, because it’s so self-evident to them that you cannot be reality based and believe in the God the monotheistic ideologies are marketing to us. The same is more or less true for France. In Britain on the other hand, where I also worked on and off, you have a much more militant atheist community. There is a very long tradition of speaking out. After all, Roman-Catholic Tony Blair led the country into a futile war against a predominantly Muslim country, aiding and abetting his fellow Christian crusader George W. Bush. In those sorts of countries people do speak out against the belief in God precisely because much more is at stake. Religious belief in those countries causes untold harm, hence the backlash from reality based people is growing stronger. Mind you, you can even see this in a country as backwardly religious as Jamaica, for instance, where debates between atheists and the religious establishment are raging even in mainstream newspapers. The tide is turning as ever more people speak out against religious fairy tales. Reminds me of Richard Dawkins who said (I am paraphrasing here): There is more to religion than vicars giving tea parties, there are evil consequences!

Udo you call this book “a humanist/atheist coming out party “, do you think it will inspire atheists who are still “in the closet” to come out?

Udo: I hope so. With a bit of luck the book might be adopted for college courses and might encourage students to join us in speaking out. Who knows, people might use it as an alternative Christmas gift and so initiate discussions with their believing friends, relatives and colleagues. Especially in societies that are very religious, books such as ours could have a significant impact. They have the potential to make skeptical people realize that they actually are not alone at all in their doubts.

Udo, Russell, what course, do you think, would benefit from this book as textbook? Philosophy? Ethics? Or something else? And are you planning on using it in your own classrooms?

Russell: I'm not likely to be doing any teaching after this year – I hope to maintain some kind of honorary research position at Monash or another university, but will otherwise be writing and editing full time. However, I can see the book being used in a range of courses. Most obviously, it could be used in philosophy of religion courses, but, for example, a course in sociology might also look at contemporary debates about religion. That could include the New Atheism phenomenon, however that is best understood.

Udo: Yep, I agree with Russell. This volume could be used in any number of courses and disciplines ranging from philosophy to cultural studies, and politics.

When you approached the publisher, how did they react? What did they say?

Udo: This has not been difficult at all. I have been working with Wiley-Blackwell for close to a decade and produced books as well as academic journals for and with them. They were very excited and very supportive from the start about the project.

While contacting contributors, what was the general feeling you got from them about the project?

Udo: We have not had serious difficulties attracting contributors – in fact, we had to turn down a few who approached us when word spread about the forthcoming anthology. It is true that a few authors we would have liked to attract turned us down, but this was not because they did not see the value of the project. They were plain overwhelmed with other work, tragedies in their family lives, the types of things that prevent you sometimes from doing the things you would like to do. I can’t think of anyone who turned us down because of doubts about the project.

Russell: Reactions varied of course, but we were generally met by a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. It even came from some of the people who were too heavily committed to contribute. No doubt different individuals had different motivations varied, but there was a strong mood that this was going to be a timely book, an opportunity for many people to have their say, all in one place, as to why they reject religion and the authority over us that it claims. We were tapping into a lot of widespread resentment, all over the world, of religion's claim to be able to tell us how to live our lives, and, in many cases, to tell governments what conduct to permit or not permit its citizens.

Lastly, why should anyone buy it? How will it enrich their lives?

Udo: Honestly, what surprised me most is how many of the contributors took our invitation seriously and divulged their personal reasons for being atheists. I found their essays most enlightening and entertaining. It’s greatly enriching to learn about these well-known people’s struggles that led them down the reality-based path. There are also contributions that are strictly academic and analytical in nature. As a philosopher I appreciate a carefully constructed and expressed analysis. So, in a sense, the mix and diversity of our voices is what makes this volume such a rich anthology.

Russell: What Udo said … and I want to emphasize the sheer diversity of the book. The contributors don't always agree with each other on such things as the future of religion, or how conciliatory we should be towards its more liberal manifestations. But that just makes the book even more thought provoking.

More Information:
Pre-order your copy of 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists today on Amazon.com

Iran OUT - Michael Jackson IN

Michael Jackson, I'm sure you know by now, died age 50 in LA yesterday. If you watched news programs during the day, you'd have thought the world had ended. The oppression of the Iranian people by the Islamic regime? The Islamic dictators' latest demands for the execution of the protest leaders? Not worth a mention on primetime news. Iran: OUT! Who cares when a pop star dies? Michael Jackson: IN.

The BBC World (more or less the only English language news program I consider worth watching) in yet another lapse of judgment wheeled out the author of a book about Madonna (sic!) in order to waffle on about Michael Jackson. After all, expertise in speculating at book length about one celebrity surely provides you with expertise about any other celebrity, particularly a dead one. Uri Geller, a 'close friend' of Michael Jackson's bored people to death with useful, analytical information about Jackson being 'now in a better place'. I'm sure Geller is going to bend yet another spoon in Jackson's memory. Jackson's family lawyer, undoubtedly beginning a cottaging industry of conspiracy and other theories of causes of death, told the world that Jackson died on pain killers. At least there's trained lawyers to inform us about what really happened, that is prior to any autopsy. Much like in the aftermath of Lady Di's untimely demise fans went into overdrive, crying hysterically and declaring that the world has come to an end.

All of that passed for news. It's not the first time in recent days that the BBC stuffed it up. A few days ago they interviewed (in the aftermath of the Iran election debacle) a London based, female 'Iranian artist' on the election. Much in the spririt of Western reporting about the country's flawed elections and the public uprising in the aftermath, the BBC expected its guest (artists that she was, no less) to say something critical about what was going on in Iran. Instead the woman went on a rhetorical rampage defending the oppressive regime, even refusing to have herself cut short by the BBC's anchorwoman. While this was all kinda funny to watch, truth be told, it makes me wonder about the judgment of those folks in charge at BBC World.

I would completely understand that US based channels switch from Iran to Jackson. Nobody expects serious news coverage from them, they're infotainment outlets. The BBC though, that is painful! Ugh.

Iran: Open Letter to UN General Secretary

To: Secretary General of the United Nations, His Excellency, Mr. Ban Ki Moon

From: Akbar Ganji, journalist and political dissident

June 23, 2009

Dear Mr. Ban Ki Moon,

Evidence shows that in the Islamic Republic of Iran elections are not free, competitive or fair, and they never lead to a real transformation in the country’s political structure. Several reasons exist for this:

Article 110 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/ir00000_.html) places most of the power in the hands of the Supreme Leader (rahbar) and institutions that are directly under his control. Article 57 of the Constitution places all three branches of the government – namely the executive, legislative and the judicial branches – “under the purview of the absolute [divine] rule and [divine] leadership” of the Supreme Leader. The people of Iran only have a say in voting for the presidency, the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majles), and local councils. Even if the people’s representatives were to be elected on fair and competitive grounds, they would be unable to bring about any real reforms in the affairs of the state. Non-elective institutions, such as the Guardian Council, the Exigency Assembly, and the High Council of Cultural Revolution, often thwart and nullify the action of elected institutions.

In practice, the real power in Iran lies in the hands of the Supreme Leader (rahbar) and it goes beyond the letter of the law as written in the Constitution. According to Article 98 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Guardian Council has the authority to interpret the Constitution, and members of this Council are directly appointed by the Supreme Leader (rahbar). The Guardian Council holds that the power of the Supreme Leader is not limited by the letter of Constitution, rendering the powers of the rahbar of the Islamic Republic virtually limitless.

The recent Iranian elections were carried out under these same limiting circumstances. Moreover, political dissidents are excluded from the pool of candidates, and a pre-condition for being considered as a candidate is to express their belief in and adherence to Islam, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, and the absolute authority of the Supreme Leader. In the latest parliamentary elections, the Council of Guardians disqualified some two thousand potential candidates and excluded them from the candidates’ pool. Again, in the most recent presidential elections, the Council of Guardians disqualified four-hundred-seventy-one applicants for candidacy and only allowed four candidates into the competition, all of whom had previously been top official positions in the Islamic Republic over the past three decades. During the Friday Prayer congregation on June 19^th, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic publically divulged that the one candidate who came closest to his own personal views was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In the election held on June 12^th 2009 more than eighty percent of eligible voters participated under these very restrictive and pre-screened conditions. Sadly, their free choice was rejected even in this latest election, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced as the winner.

Most Iranians concur that their vote has not been truthfully accounted for. All across the country, the people have come out and held peaceful rallies to protest electoral violations that amount to a drastic violation of their right to shape their future. Sadly, the government of the Islamic Republic has faced off these peaceful and civil protests harshly, and several innocent people, including students in the nation’s universities have been barbarically assaulted by the state police. Numerous political and civil activists have been imprisoned without due process and, and at the same time, communication networks have been widely disrupted and severe restrictions have been placed on the activities of reporters and international observers.

We, intellectuals, political activists, and defenders of democratic rights and liberties beseech you to heed the widespread protests of the Iranian people and to take immediate and urgent action by:

1) Forming an international truth-finding commission to examine the electoral process, vote counting and the fraudulent manipulation of the people’s vote in Iran

2) Pressuring the government in Iran to annul fraudulent election results and hold democratic, competitive and fair elections under the auspices of the UN

3) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to release all those detained in the course of recent protests

4) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to free the media that have been banned in recent days and to recognize and respect the right of the people to free expression of ideas and the nonviolent protesting the results of the recent elections

5) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to stop its harsh and barbaric treatment of the people of Iran

6) Refuse to recognize Ahmadinejad’s illegitimate government that has staged an electoral coup, and curtailing any and all forms of cooperation with it from all nations and international organizations

Sincerely,

Akbar Ganji

Jurgen Habermas

Martha Nussbaum

Philip Pettit

Nasr Hamed Abu Zayd

Nader Hashemi

Nixon on interracial kids

The US Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing abortion in its landmark Roe v Wade decision. Richard Nixon was Pres of the US of A at the time. The New York Times today quotes from another batch of his never-ending tapes. They were released yesterday by the country's National Archives.

'Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases — like interracial pregnancies, he said.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.” '

No wonder the Republican Party is so widely reviled. They haven't had a great deal of success in terms of picking sensible leaders, hu?

Boycott Siemens and Nokia products

There's strong evidence that Siemens and Nokia sold mobile phone monitoring equipment to the Iranian regime. Reports the Wall Street Journal: 'Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections.' ... and 'Iran is "now drilling into what the population is trying to say," said Bradley Anstis, director of technical strategy with Marshal8e6 Inc., an Internet security company in Orange, Calif. He and other experts interviewed have examined Internet traffic flows in and out of Iran that show characteristics of content inspection, among other measures. "This looks like a step beyond what any other country is doing, including China." ... 'Instead, in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.'

Here's how that works:

'Deep packet inspection involves inserting equipment into a flow of online data, from emails and Internet phone calls to images and messages on social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Every digitized packet of online data is deconstructed, examined for keywords and reconstructed within milliseconds. In Iran's case, this is done for the entire country at a single choke point, according to networking engineers familiar with the country's system. It couldn't be determined whether the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks is used specifically for deep packet inspection.

All eyes have been on the Internet amid the crisis in Iran, and government attempts to crack down on information. The infiltration of Iranian online traffic could explain why the government has allowed the Internet to continue to function -- and also why it has been running at such slow speeds in the days since the results of the presidential vote spurred unrest.'

I have to concede, it's beyond me why business organisations such as Siemens and Nokia would sell technology to dictatorships that permit the dictators to oppress their peoples even more effectively. I do think this is a clear case for a boycott of their products.

Germany's Parliament on Advance Directives

To the surprise of many observers (given the still predominantly Christian culture in the country) the German parliament has resolved that patients' advance directives are legally binding. Doctors or other health care professionals who choose to ignore them will in future be prosecuted on grounds of having committed bodily assault. What is significant in a positive way is that such advance directives do not require that the patient in question suffers from a terminal illness. It's a bit odd, to my mind, that patients do not need to get doctors' advice on the substance of the advance directive (so as to ensure that their document really covers what they think it covers).

Of course, advance directives only kick in in circumstances where the patient is unable to express his or her own wishes, that's why they are needed in advance of a certain health problem that renders a patient for instance comatose. Doctors will have to ascertain whether or not the situation that the patient finds him- or herself in is covered by the advance directive. In case there's a conflict between the executors of the patients' wishes and the attending health care professionals' considered opinion, a court of law has to make the call on the advance directive. At this point in tome about 8 million adult Germans have issued legally binding advance directives. For the first time in German legal history these advance directives have legal bite, so to speak.

The German Catholic bishops have since raised 'concerns', as they usually tend to do when people make up their own minds about how they'd like to live and die.

MD'ed crackpotism

Apologies all for the hiatus since the last posting. I am currently on the road again and it's difficult to catch up with work as well as the blog when one's office is far away. Anyhow, I was in Montreal a few days ago and discovered on rue St Denis a lovely buffet style vegetarian place called Restaurant le Commensal. Delightful food. As is often the case with such places, they don't 'just' serve food, but they also serve a bunch of varying ideologies, frequently simply hippie'ish, but not always. I recall in Melbourne a place that served very basic (and very cheap) vegetarian food that was owned by the religious sect that was in the habit of buying Rolls Royces for its guru. So, I wasn't too surprised when I found a book called 'Soul Wisdom', written by Dr Zhi Gang Sha. The good doctor claims to be trained in both Western as well as Chinese traditional medicine. The book claims that he is also 'an expert in the most advanced cellular healing sciences now occurring in China'. You might have guessed already that the good doctor's cutting edge research is so recent that it has not made it yet into peer reviewed journals. Guess he's a good candidate for Oprah Winfrey's show. I'm sure, by now you know about her habit of promoting health related charlatans of the 'wish your cancer away' variety in her TV show.

Well, our Soul Wisdom doctor fits that bill. His book, to my great horror, made it to #1 of the New York Times bestseller list, if the book's cover can be trusted. It begins with a chapter on how the Divine chats to him, enters him and others and has chosen him to help others. Simple as that, most likely on a cellular cutting edge level. But then, the divine isn't cellular or is it, pardon me, or is he (it's a 'he' according to the good doctor). Anyhow, the book offers a healing method called 'divine downloads'. Sounds initially like a server from which people who purchased the book could download healing blurbs. Ha, that at least would have required the doctor to produce however inane content to be downloaded, and that would have meant work. So, instead, his divine downloads are hidden in paragraphs of the book. You can download em at any time by closing your eyes and hitting the invisible, imaginary divine download button. Say you're suffering from terminal liver cancer, all you got to do is chant a lot, go to the relevant page and download the invisible divine download ... or something like that. If you don't feel anything, that simply means you're not ready for it. If you feel your liver cancer has disappeared, the divine download worked obviously, if it hasn't, you chant a bit and you're sorted.

Here's a quote from the intro, just to give you a flavour of the book:

'The Divine continued, "... I offer my healing and blessing by transmitting my permanent healing and blessing treasures." I [ie the good doctor]asked, "How do you do this?" The Divine answered, "Select a person and I will give you a demonstration."I asked for a volunteer with serious health challenges. A man named Walter raised his hand. He stood up and explained that he had liver cancer, with a two-by-three centimeter malignant tumor that had just been diagnosed from a biopsy. I then asked the Divine, "Please bless Walter. Please show me how you transmit your permanent treasures." I saw the Divine send a beam of light from the Divine's heart to Walter's liver. The beam shot into his liver, where it turned into a golden light ball that instantly started spinning. Walter's entire liver shone with beautiful golden light. [The divine reportedly said...] "I have just transmitted or downloaded my Soulsoftware for Liver to Walter. It is one of my permanent healing and blessing treasures."

It goes without saying, and possibly to avoid law suits, the divine explained that the download alone isn't going to heal Walter's liver cancer. Walter has to work on it. He needs to chant for at least two hours per day: 'Divine Liver Soul Software heals me.' If he didn't do that, he might just have died from his liver cancer. However, Walter chanted 'Divine Liver Soul Software heals me' for very many hours. And, there's the good news, his liver cancer just disappeared. Amazing stuff, completely unclear why we bother with modern medicine, when all that's needed are invisible divine software downloads!

Can you imagine, a 300 pp book, filled with crap like that, aimed at people suffering serious ailments? I'm surprised that people are able not only to get away with this, but also that there's a reading audience out there that catapults such bollocks to the #1 spot of the New York Times bestseller list. Scary scary.

Another murder aimed at furthering the 'pro-life' agenda

It had to happen, the pro-life affirming loonies in the USA have taken yet another person's life. George Tiller, MD, a medical doctor specialising in reproductive health services, including medically indicated late-term abortions, was gunned down outside a church service in his home town. I'm probably as shocked about this killing as most reality based people. However, there's a deeper issue about this, at least to my mind.

The religious ideologies that triggered the murder of Tiller (and, in the past, others like him) want their adherents to subscribe to the view that from the moment of biological conception (marriage and all, you know the drill) the developing embryonic cell mass is of infinite value and should be treated as if it was a person. Well, persons - all other things being equal - are usually seen to have a right to life. At a minimum this is understood as a negative right, ie I must not interfere with such a person's right to life (by way of killing that person).

Let me be clear: I do think the view that something that has no central nervous system, that has no capacity to suffer, and that has no higher brain function has a right to life, makes no sense at all. What harm could possibly have been done to such a thing if it is destroyed? None at all, at least as far as I can see. It is for that reason that I reject the idea that we should treat the developing embryonic cell mass from the moment of conception as if it was a person. After all, it isn't a person, so why bother? It's a bit like saying that I should treat the leader of the opposition as if she was the leader of government. She might have the potential to be the next leader of government, but right now she is not. I surely cannot smuggle the right to be treated as if you were the leader of government into the potential to become the leader of government. A lot of potential things never eventuate (eg my potential to be an astronaut will not ever be realised).

However, and here is where I am troubled about this matter. IF someone really holds the barmy view that the embryonic cell mass after conception is infinitely valuable and should be treated as if it was a person from that moment onwards, it is only logical that you consider abortions murder. In turn it is perfectly reasonable for such a person to treat abortion providing health care professionals as if they were murderers. Surely it is not unreasonable (from such a person's perspective) to try to prevent further murders from happening. Ergo it should not come as a big surprise that Doctor Tiller was murdered by a 'good citizen' trying to prevent further murders at the hands of the good doctor.

So, the pro-life crowd's handwaving along the lines that the murderer is not one of theirs, makes not much sense. The ideology they propagate leads, to my mind inevitably so, to the killing of people like Tiller. Freedom of speech seemingly covers Catholic propaganda ministers freedom to spout lies about a supposedly ongoing 'genocide', whereby the deliberately and mistakenly refer to blobs of cells as 'children'. IF you really believe that propaganda, surely it's not unreasonable to conclude that in order to stop the genocide the perpetrators of the genocide must be stopped. Killing one person (eg Dr Tiller) is clearly seen by some of those on the pro-life side as the lesser of two evils. They are only able to reach this conclusion, however, because the church hierarchy continues to propagate outrageous nonsense about 'genocide' and 'holocaust' and whatnot when it comes to abortion. This is where the blame for Tiller's murder as well as that of others like him squarely belongs. You shouldn't be too surprised if some people at least do actually fall for your agitprop.

GM and all ...

sez it all...

Canadian Governor General reveals Taste for Seal Hearts

I'm sure most people outside Canada (and probably very many inside the country) have missed the country's Governor General's latest shenanigans. During her latest venture into an indigenous Canadian Inuits territory she duly helped herself to bits and pieces of a seal's heart that she gobbled down raw. In the words of The Toronto Star newspaper:[she] "revelled in helping herself to the heart of the dripping carcass". More than that, "Jean helped to gut the seal before swallowing a slice of the mammal's heart, ignoring the European Union vote earlier this month to impose a ban on seal products on grounds the seal hunt is cruel." All of that is probably only slightly more barbaric than our daily mass slaughter of other animals that we breed in mass breeding factories. The Governor General's defense of this "ancient" Inuit practice goes like this: "These are ancient practices that are part of a way of life," Jean said, framing her gutsy gesture as an act of solidarity with the Inuit. "If you can't understand that, you're completely missing the reality of life here." That is so funny, really.

I mean, for starters, what does an exceedingly well-paid governor general really know about the daily lives of Inuit people? Surely nothing first-hand. Further, what if the Inuit had another "ancient practice", say, eating 5 year old kids alive (I know they're not doing that, stay with me!). If the governor general's view is that the slaughter of seals is acceptable because it has been done for such a long time, it would follow that - all other things being equal - any number of other things that are traditionally done are justifiable on the grounds that they have always been done. This is a pretty conservative take on the world. It seems to suggest essentially that she does not believe the Inuit are able to evolve beyond their ancient practices, and that for that reason we should respect whatever it is that anciently they happen to do. - Mind you, another argument that I have seen is, is that there's no other way for these folks to feed themselves. Well, perhaps the Canadian government should consider offering sensible job alternatives to the people in question instead of celebrating their barbaric "ancient times" activities.

My problem with the Governor General's take is essentially that it is disrespectful of the Inuit, because it does not take them seriously as citizens in the same way that other citizens are being taken seriously. Being taken seriously means not only to be respected in important ways, but also to be held accountable for what one does. If Canada has laws in place that prohibit cruelty to sentient animals it will hold those of its citizens accountable that commit such acts of cruelty... that is, unless they're Inuit, in which case the country's Governor General joins in the fun. The bizarre reason for this is that the cruelty in question is one enjoyed since "ancient times", hence it's kinda cool. Ethical rationales therefore clearly do not apply to Canada's indigenous people, at least that seems to be the Governor General's logic. What does this tell us about respect for indigenous peoples?

What I also find odd about the ongoing public discussion about this (well, discussion in the news media) is that the issue is presented as one of liberal city talking heads (me) vs the romanticised ancient Inuits. Well, even if that divide was as clear-cut, the question remains whether treating animals in such a manner is acceptable, ancient or no... adding labels to folks (aka liberal city based talking head) begs this question.

Enough said.

Violent assault on espresso connoisseurs

Oh horror, the Dutch company Philips, maker of those both ubiquituous and horrendous 'espresso' machines relying on 'coffee pods' has bought Saeco the Italian maker of espresso machines.

I don't care strongly about Saeco as they also sell automatic coffee machines, ie coffee makers where you put your cup in, push a button and it does everything including the cappuccino foam. Pretty gross cappuccino by any stretch of imagination!

However, and here it gets really really serious, this means that Philips now also owns Gaggia, the Italian brand owned by Saeco. Just look at Gaggia's Classic (not coincidentally: I own one of these beauties) and ask yourself how such a brand will fare under the control of a company that probably invented 'coffee pods' and dumped them in uncountable hotel rooms as well as kitchens of people who should know better. A dark day indeed.

'God' motivated child abuse - on home 'schooling' and cancer care

Here is the story, some of which you might already have heard about: A 13 year old teenage boy in Minnesota, carefully brainwashed by his parents by means of 'God' enlightened home 'schooling', is diagnosed during a hospital visit with suffering from a form of cancer called Hodgkin's lymphoma. Just to be clear, 'God' here, for a change, isn't 'Jesus' or 'Allah' or Jehova', nope it's a fakeish American-Indian thingie called Nemenhah. That might make it more attractive to freewheeling hippies, but it's no less idiotic obviously. Thankfully, if diagnosed and treated in time, there's a very high likelihood that, with proper treatment - involving chemotherapy - the child patient would survive. The probability of successful medical care is in the vicinity of 85 to > 90%.

Well, the farm-based home-schooled child of God decides that it doesn't want chemotherapy anymore. The side-effects are unpleasant, and he saw his auntie die while on chemotherapy. The family seeks a second expert opinion that also confirms the high likelihood of success of chemotherapy. They kid won't have any of it (who cares about expert opinion when a teenage boy has strong views about cancer care, and he's duly supported (or coaxed into this) but his parents who believe in 'natural' remedies. A court thing ensues, as is wont in such cases, and the court orders the kid to be treated with allopathic medicines in order to preserve his life. This, of course, is perfectly fair enough, given the obvious child abuse that took place here. Comes Mom who grabs her boy and takes off to Mexico in search of further alternative cures. It's interesting how a combination of life-threatening illness and idiotic parents can actually kill children.

Some have argued that in this case perhaps religious belief shouldn't be criticised unduly, given that it might just be the pretext used by parents predisposed to using 'natural' remedies over mainstream medicine. I don't buy into this. In this case as well as others like it is very difficult to ascertain retrospectively what it is that existed first, belief in natural remedies as a result of religious conviction or religious belief leading to silly ideas about modern medicine. The point surely is that in both cases religious belief is central to the 'argument' rejecting life-preserving medical care.

Comes Mom and runs away with the son, reportedly to Mexico in order to find an alternative cure for the kid. Doctors confirm that time is running out for the kid, and that he's going to reach the point of no return any time soon. Invariably there has been discussion about religious freedom in this context. Frankly, I doubt it's about this, it's about parents clearly unable to make decisions that are in their child's objective best interest (it goes without saying probably, neither is the 13 year old teenager in question, seeing that he is already lacking any decent schooling). It does not matter whether their motive is a non-existent mainstream religion God or such a God's American-Indian alternative. It's irrelevant to a large extent - at this point in time - what motivates the parents and child. What is much more troublesome is that it could have got this far to begin with. The reassuring news is that in another case, where a mother prayed for her diabetic child instead of taking her to the hospital, she was found guilty of second degree reckless homicide.

Another step closer: Voices of Disbelief cover

Neat, ain't it? Found it at amazon.

Apologies, I am currently away in beautiful Ilmenau

Folks, I am currently at a conference in picturesque Ilmenau. I'll be back with more frequent entries from May 19 or thereabouts. Apologies for the hiatus.

Meanwhile I reproduce here a piece from the Toronto Star that covers some of my views on IVF and such matters. Following the article is a link to a site where IVF proponents vent their anger and arguments against my views.

The right to bear children

Stuart Laidlaw
FAITH AND ETHICS REPORTER

There are two things in Ashley Bulley-Arbos's house she always wanted, but feared she would never see.

"We had them set up at five months," says Bulley-Arbos, now seven months pregnant with twins thanks to in-vitro fertilization. "It was pretty exciting."

Married to her high school sweetheart, Bulley-Arbos never had any doubt she wanted children. Not many, but she knew she would never feel complete if she didn't have kids with the man she loves, Adrian Arbos.

More than that, she says, it's her right to be a mother – and she wasn't going to let a little thing like infertility get in her way.

"It's not a want, it's a need for me," she says. "If I hadn't ever got pregnant, I could never be happy."

The 25-year-old is now an active member of Conceivable Dreams, a support group for couples needing medical help to get pregnant.

Tomorrow, Mother's Day, the group will lead a march at 10 a.m. from City Hall to Queen's Park with 200 women pushing empty strollers to demand that the province fund in-vitro fertilization. Quebec recently announced that it would soon begin funding up to three IVF cycles per couple.

Bulley-Arbos's friends and neighbours rallied to help her and Arbos raise two-thirds of the $15,000 cost for IVF. She will speak at the rally – dubbed the Pram Push – to tell her story of relying on bake sales, community barbecues and a Bands for Babies charity concert to raise the money.

"It took us a while to get over that we were going to charity," she says.

No one, Bulley-Arbos says, should have to rely on handouts to pay for a medical treatment. "It should be anybody's right to have a baby. This is a medical procedure," she says.

Not everyone agrees.

"It's a perfectly private matter, it's a private interest," says Udo Schuklenk, a medical ethicist at Queen's University.

Being a parent is not a right, he says.

It's a personal choice that the rest of society should not have to pay for through their taxes, he says.

"People die from preventable illnesses because of the way health care resources are allocated."

Schuklenk understands the instinctual desire to produce offspring, but says that does not make it a human right.

"From there it does not follow that there is a moral claim on others to foot the bill," he says. "It's selfish."

Christine Overall, a feminist ethicist at Queen's, warns that if women had a right to be mothers, men would have a corresponding right to be fathers. At that, she says, would allow men to demand that a woman become pregnant, throwing out decades of progress on contraception and abortion rights.

"If someone has a right to be a parent, that implies an obligation on the part of someone else (to also be a parent)," she says. "You don't have the right to the gamies of another."

She does, however, support full funding for IVF, saying it would be unethical to deny some women access to a medical procedure on the basis of ability to pay.

"It should be provided on an as-needed basis," Overall says, adding the question of whether a woman has a right to be a mother needs to be separated from the right to IVF.

"It's not a matter of a right to be a parent. It's a matter of a right to access to a medical procedure."

Overall also worries that if women had a right to be mothers, the medical system would become obligated to do everything possible to fulfill that right, including endless rounds of IVF.

"It's wrong to say you have a right to be a mother, because you can never guarantee a baby," she says.

Having worked in medical clinics in South Africa for five years, Schuklenk says there are children around the world growing up orphaned or in terrible conditions who would have a better life if people in the western world chose adoption over IVF.

But that's not likely to happen, he says, if IVF is easy to get. Besides, he says, those who object to paying for IVF on their own should realize that it costs about as much to raise a child as it does to buy a house.

"And yet, they are not willing to make that initial investment (of paying for IVF)," he says.

Bulley-Arbos, whose twins are due Canada Day, is a firm believer that IVF should be covered under medicare. With a household income of about $60,000, she says, the day-to-day costs of raising a child are affordable, but not a medical procedure that would eat up a quarter of their income.

A recent study found that it would actually be cheaper for the Ontario Health Insurance Plan to cover IVF than to continue the current user-pay system.

That's because parents going through IVF tend to get more than one embryo implanted to boost the odds of one going to term. But with IVF improving, more embryos are surviving to birth – leading to a jump in multiple births.

And because multiple birth children tend to have more medical problems throughout their lives, they require more from the medical system.

Health economics analyst Lindy Forte found that each multiple birth child costs medicare an extra $598,000 over its lifetime. Because of that, she says, funding single-implantation IVF cycles would save the Ontario health care system up to $130 million a year.

Beverly Hanck of the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada says any funding of IVF would include limits on the number of embryos being implanted.

"The ultimate goal is one healthy baby," she says.

Back in Tilbury, Bulley-Arbos says it's not just prospective parents who suffer in cases of infertility.

When her brother and his wife found out they were having a child – before Bulley-Arbos was pregnant – he was reluctant to share the good news for fear it might hurt his then-struggling sister.

Likewise, she says, her parents were "devastated" by the troubles she was having becoming pregnant.

"It's not just my husband and me," she says.

Bulley-Arbos says she is trying to give "something back" for all the community support she received in her efforts to get pregnant, and has dedicated herself to pushing for full IVF funding in Ontario so that any woman can become a mother.

"My story has a happy ending," she says. "Not everybody gets their happy ending."

A parenting fitness test?

Some people already have the right to be parents – those able to have children without medical help.

Medical ethicist Udo Schuklenk of Queen's University says a couple's right or fitness to be parents tends to only be raised for those such as infertile or gay couples who can't bear children on their own.

No one, he says, tells a couple that is capable of bearing children that they have no right to do so. And yet newspapers regularly carry stories of parents unwilling or unable to properly care for their children, as well as terrible stories of abuse and neglect.

"Would it not make sense to check whether people are actually fit to be a parent?"

Such tests already exist, he says, for couples trying to adopt children, who must submit to criminal and income checks. Medical tests could also be done to ensure disabilities are not passed on, he says.

He admits, however, that there would likely be a strong reaction to such an idea, as it would raise the spectre of eugenics and selective breeding.

"I can see how what I am saying can be misconstrued," he says. "But if we are really concerned about the welfare of children ... it makes sense for the state to look at these sorts of issues."

- Stuart Laidlaw

... and the link to the IVF user site (it seems that that's what it is): http://forums.weddingbells.ca/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=3744872&Main=3744538

We made it into the Economist

with this note (in this week's issue):

Religious nonsense

SIR – I agree that freedom of speech “must include the right to ‘defame’ religions” (“The meaning of freedom”, April 4th). The UN Human Rights Council, which adopted a resolution decrying religious defamation as an affront to human dignity, is controlled mostly by countries that are among the most prolific violators of civil rights, including the right to speak one’s mind.

The blasphemy document itself is remarkable in its scope and deliberate vagueness. Notorious civil-rights violators like Iran and Saudi Arabia will now be able to claim with some confidence that the UN is on their side when they clamp down on liberal-minded or secular Muslims. Western countries will also be happy to note that the council thinks the human right to free speech is not violated when they enforce their own, less draconian, blasphemy laws. The UN has firmly established itself as a body that is not even prepared to defend the basic principles enshrined in its Declaration of Human Rights.

Udo Schuklenk
Professor of philosophy
Queen’s University
Kingston, Canada

Ethics victory over Religion in Berlin

Berlin's citizens were faced with a call for a citizen's (or people's) vote (or Volksentscheid) this last weekend. The question Berliners were asked to vote on centered on this: Should Berlin's pupils be forced to choose between ethics or compulsory religion classes or should ethics classes be compulsory for all pupils. Ethics classes were introduced some three or four years ago in Germany. The government of the multi-cultural and multi-religious German metropolis realized that, with many of the city's pupils coming from non-Christian backgrounds, it would be problematic to force these pupils to choose between Catholic or Protestant religious classes. Instead, probably also as a means to build social cohesion in the city state, everyone has to take ethics classes these days there. The same ethics classes for everyone.

The Christian churches and its conservative party forced a citizens' vote on the issue, and were massively trounced in Berlin. Only 14.2% of all Berliner's entitled to vote cast their vote voted in favor of the ongoing child abuse that religious classes really are. Let me be clear here: with religious classes I mean the brainwashing of pupils according to a particular religious ideology. I have no problems at all, with the system that is in place in for instance South African public schools, where children receive information about a large number of religious ideologies, as opposed to them being indoctrinated for years by 'teachers' preaching a particular religious ideology. This is what happened to me, for instance, during my primary and secondary school education in Germany. So, I am pleased to report that things are steadily improving in good ol Germany. It goes without saying probably that I also believe it is good news that critical thinking skills in ethics that are a valuable tool to have will remain compulsory in Berlin.

Human dignity and individual liberty

There is an argument going on among well-intentioned and more or less knowledgeable bioethicists about the question of whether there is much use in deploying the concept of 'human dignity' in resolving conflicts about normative questions in the field. Here is a good critical take on the issue.

Typically the issue of dignity is wheeled in by opposing sides when they don't like the stance held by the other side, and they have no good arguments left to defend their own take on the matter. Here's a few examples: voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. There's opponents of physician assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia who claim that such means to end a persons life are not dignified. Certainly the Roman Catholic Church thinks so. If you know anything at all about this debate, you will know that 'Death with Dignity' is also the battle-cry deployed by voluntary euthanasia groups. The same concept is used without blushing by groups for diametrically opposed means. That's odd indeed.

Up to this point I talked about the concept of dignity as if there was one. Of course, if neither the euthanasia folks nor the anti-euthanasia folks are able to demonstrate that the other side is wrong in their use of the concept of dignity, quite possibly there is something wrong with the concept, or, more to the point, quite possibly there's no concept.

Is voluntary euthanasia the exception pointing to a small problem with the idea of 'dignity', or is there actually more evidence that 'dignity' might just be a vacuous motherhood-and-apple pie thing suitable for and against anything and nothing. Well, in fact, there's plenty of other examples. IVF and artificial insemination (to go the the other end of our lives) are in the same boat as euthanasia. Christians routinely argue (well, claim) that our dignity is violated if we use such means of modern reproduction, allegedly because it's against our nature to do so. Of course, they don't mean a matter-of-fact type nature, they mean their normative understanding of what our nature should be like. It is well known that people who require access to such means of reproduction think their their dignity as rational agents is violated if the state or others prevents them from exercising such a choice (gays and lesbians come to mind, for instance). Both sides deploy the idea of 'dignity' to advance their diametrically opposing stances! Odd indeed.

Pornography is another, and my last example. There is no consensus at all about the question of whether someone violates his her or dignity (and that of others) by watching or participating in the production of pornographic material.

The German enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant initially understood respect for someone's dignity really as respect for a rational, autonomous agent. In that sense, dignity is kind of a short for respect for autonomous persons. That probably is a sensible thing. All other things being equal, we should be respectful of at least the self-regarding actions autonomous beings wish to undertake. May be that is what we should be saying, however. Of course, since then religious folks and invariably the UN have stepped in with a deluge of dignity here and dignity there declarations and statements that resulted into dignity being reduced to a campaign tool for everything and nothing at all. Christianity, for instance, quickly removed the Kantian criteria of reason and rationality and agitated for embryos' dignity, and human rights related claims derived from those. In case of doubt the supposedly necessary respect for these embryos' alleged dignity was used to override women's interest in controlling what's happening with their bodies. The UN has declared, for no good ethical reason at all, that reproductive human cloning is dignity violating. This emperor certainly is naked! Human dignity, warm and fuzzy as it may sound, is a useless tool for advancing arguments on any of the relevant fronts in bioethics. This insight is true regardless of the substantive stance that you'd take on any of these controversial issues, by the way. Dignity really is just a rhetorical tool as opposed to a serious conceptual means to advance discussions on these issues.

Today we are probably well advised, should we face the need to make a snap-decision, to reject dignity related claims unless these claims have another rationale attached to them that is based on some other framework. If anything, you'd probably right if you assumed that more often than not human dignity is deployed as a means of preventing people from making self-regarding choices.

Ouch, Marge Somerville is at it again

The Vatican's voice at McGill University, Margaret Somerville, in her endless campaign against any kind of sexual activity other than that of the heterosexual married kind, has struck again. Typically in the Globe and Mail, a Toronto based rag considered a quality paper in Canada. Here's what she had to say.

Here's my response (kinda doubt you'd see it in the paper, so I thought posting it here can't hurt :-). Umm... I take it all 'back'. Here's the edited version of the letter that the paper published.

Sir,

Margaret Somerville's obsession with other people's sexual conduct knows clearly no end.

The obvious flaw in what goes as her argument is this: if incestuous activities among competent adults are truly voluntary, and no offspring is forthcoming, why should the state inflict religious mores of Somerville's kind on such citizens? Volenti non fit injuria - Did our self-appointed ethics scholar really never come across this basic legal and ethical concept?

Somerville's piece suffers from a fairly basic, yet lethal logic error, namely the idea that nature could somehow tell us anything at all about the question of whether incest is a morally good or a bad thing. Even if it were the case that other primates avoid incest, this would tell us nothing about our moral obligations in that regard. They don't drive cars either, so, according to Somerville's fawlty towers logic we should presumably reconsider the use of all means of
modern transport.

The Globe and Mail is to be congratulated for having, once again, commissioned a piece of Somerville agitprop that mistakenly ended up under the heading of 'ethics'. It is unfortunate, that you delayed publication of Somerville's piece to a date after April 01.

Terrible fate for bioethics genomics 'experts'

Reams of bioethics books, PhD theses and papers have been written about personalised genomic medicine, genetic enhancement, much to the skepticism of yours truly (I kinda failed to see the point of investigating the ethics of non-existent technologies, the justice of equal access to such non-existent technologies, eugenics and such non-existent technologies etc etc etc). It turns out that bioethicists writing about these sorts of issues seem to have gotten ever so slightly ahead of themselves and/or the non-existent technologies. Reports the New York Times today, that "genomewide association study [...] has been disappointing in that the kind of genetic variation it detects has turned out to explain surprisingly little of the genetic links to most diseases." The current issues of the New England Journal of Medicine tries to make sense of this finding. Among these findings is that another great pet topic of bioethicists, namely investigating 'the right to know versus the right not to know', and the question of whether individuals should have access to genetic tests seems to be another storm in the non-existent genetic tea-cup. Turns out, to quote again from the New York Times, "“With only a few exceptions, what the genomics companies are doing right now is recreational genomics,” Dr. Goldstein said in an interview. “The information has little or in many cases no clinical relevance.” In other words, the tests results have little to no clinical predictive value.

Here are a few more excerpts from the NYT piece:

Unlike the rare diseases caused by a change affecting only one gene, common diseases like cancer and diabetes are caused by a set of several genetic variations in each person. Since these common diseases generally strike later in life, after people have had children, the theory has been that natural selection is powerless to weed them out. The[...]se diseases were expected to be promoted by genetic variations that are common in the population. More than 100 genomewide association studies, often involving thousands of patients in several countries, have now been completed for many diseases, and some common variants have been found. But in almost all cases they carry only a modest risk for the disease. Most of the genetic link to disease remains unexplained.

Dr. Goldstein argues that the genetic burden of common diseases must be mostly carried by large numbers of rare variants. In this theory, schizophrenia, say, would be caused by combinations of 1,000 rare genetic variants, not of 10 common genetic variants.This would be bleak news for those who argue that the common variants detected so far, even if they explain only a small percentage of the risk, will nonetheless identify the biological pathways through which a disease emerges, and hence point to drugs that may correct the errant pathways. If hundreds of rare variants are involved in a disease, they may implicate too much of the body’s biochemistry to be useful. “In pointing at everything,” Dr. Goldstein writes in the journal, “genetics would point at nothing.”

No doubt some philosopher will be quick to point out that the theoretical analysis in its own right is tremendously valuable. Hey, here's a thought, how about investigating the ethics of other non-existent technologies or things (like the flying blue teacup that created the universe)? It seems to me that given that there's plenty of meaningful real-world problems that bioethicists could be addressing, they should query the ethics of spending their time on fantasy problems pertaining to non-existent technologies.

Thanks to Howard Wolinsky for bringing this piece to my attention (on facebook, mind you!)

Obama's tortured response to US government sanctioned torture

It is quite remarkable. The Attorney General of former US Pres Bush issued Memo after Memo explaining to the CIA and its operatives that certain kinds of torture of potentially (or really) militant Muslims is acceptable. Health care professionals pro-actively participated in torture based interrogations of such prisoners. All of this was in clear violation of international law on this matter.

Obama, yes, the 'bollocks we can believe in' guy who's now US President, has taken the brave step of publishing these Memos. Now the world knows in detail what kinds of torture US operatives deployed in order to extract useful information from prisoners. That's the good thing. The Memos in question reveal quite remarkable stuff, including sleep deprivation (several days), slamming prisoners' heads against concrete walls, the now notorious waterboarding, loud music, sensory deprivation, keeping prisoners for days in a row naked, and the list goes on. Health care professionals monitored the proceedings and the prisoners' health. The bad thing, much in line with Obama talking the talk but as yet not walking the walk, is that his administration has no intention of prosecuting those involved in torturing inmates, or those who authorised and / or ordered such activities.

To be clear, this will permit the following to get away with torture scotch-free:
a) those who already argue that they were following orders, and who claim that they received legal advice from the Bush administration's Attorney General suggestiong that the torture wasn't torture and so they could (disingeniously) claim to be not in breach of any international law; and
b) those who actually rendered the misleading legal advice; and
c) those who issued the rules authorising torture.

It seems to me that certainly the former Attorney General as well as other senior officials of the Bush administration ought to be held accountable for their actions. This view seems supported by international law. The USA is bound by the UN Convention against Torture, and so is obliged to prosecute anyone against whom clear evidence exists. It is unclear to me why Obama chose not to hold them accountable. One wonders whether he is already oncerned about the question of whether he and his government mates could be prosecuted for their potential future illegal activities... - Surely, if the illegal act of committing, ordering or authorising torture is insufficient to trigger prosecutions under the Obama administration, one wonders what would be worthy of its attention. It seems as if for reasons of cheap political expedience justice related considerations were sacrificed by the man you should not believe in.

Another sign of spinelessness - or a sign of more to come from Obama?

Good news on whale hunting barbarism

It seems both bad weather and successful operations by anti-whaling forces prevented the Japanese whaling fleet last year from killing more of these gracious mammals. Instead of the 985 whales they're permitted to kill for 'scientific purposes' they only managed to slaughter 'only' 680. That probably means less whale-burgers in Japan. Terrible fate... - Well, now that the high-seas animal protection activity is over - and I much like the result it has achieved - I wonder how much longer will it take the whale-lib folks to take care of the millions of higher mammals that we torture in our animal mass breeding factories for our daily food production. Or is the focus on whales due to them being kinda cuter than your average pig? Evidence seems to suggest that pigs' intelligence is comparable to that of a three year old average gifted kid...

OMG it's Easter again

... and there's no end in terms of speeches by Catholic Church senior management folks that would fairly qualify as evil propaganda. Augsburg's Bishop Dr Walter Mixa (he's the bloke wearing the colourful dress in the picture) declared that without God there's no end to what people would likely do to each other. He used in his Easter 'sermon' (in his particular case hate speech given on Church property to Church members) the examples of atheist nationalsocialism and atheist communism and the murders these regimes committed against millions of humans as examples of what happens when God's law isn't obeyed.

Well, fair enough, the good German bishop is paid to run propaganda campaigns against non-believers [in Germant only about 22% of the population believe unequivocally that God exists, while 23% do not (the rest is sitting on the philosophical fence)], but still. He chose to ignore that it wasn't atheism that motivated the Nazis or the Soviet style communists but Nazi ideology and Soviet style communist ideology. So, both with respect to the Nazi crimes and to the Soviety style communist crimes atheism did not trigger the horrendous crimes committed.

The same, of course, cannot be said for the crimes Christians and Muslims committed in the name of their respective Gods. The Christian crusades and the massmurders they resulted into were motivated entirely by religious belief. Similar stories can be told with regard to most monotheistic religious ideologies. Will any German authority go after the good bishop and charge him for hate speech related crimes? Of course not! Once you're a dress wearing middle-aged to very-aged man who represents an organisation that routinely is embroiled in child sex abuse cases, it seems you can say whatever you like.

Talking about double-standards! Indeed, I wonder whether my truthful description of the bishop (as dress-wearing etc) above would qualify by UN standards as a human rights violation, given that it could be read as mocking the representative of a major religion. According to the UN Human Rights Council that qualifies squarely as a human rights violation... -

In fairness to the Catholic Church, however, it tries to make up on the odd occasion for its all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good God's failings! The Vatican sent this Easter 500 Easter eggs to the victims of the earthquake in Italy. Neat gesture by one of the richest organisations on earth!

First international response to UN blashpemy-as-human-rights-violation farce

As regular readers of this blog will recall, the UN Human Rights Council has issued a declaration that in many ways gives room for permitting those societies that are bent on oppressing free speech, to introduce blasphemy legislation. These oppressive regimes could easily hide under the UN's ludicrous assertion that criticism of religions is some kind of human rights violation (as if religion was a human being). Anyway, below (thanks to Russell Blackford for pointing this document out to me), is a declaration/petition of NGOs opposed to this move.

We, the undersigned non-governmental organizations,

Deeply concerned by the pervasive and mounting campaign by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to produce U.N. resolutions, declarations, and world conferences that propagate the concept of “defamation of religions,” a concept having no basis in domestic or international law, and which would alter the very meaning of human rights, which protect individuals from harm, but not beliefs from critical inquiry;

Deeply concerned by the attempt to misuse the U.N. to legitimize blasphemy laws, thereby restricting freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press;

Deeply concerned that “defamation of religions” resolutions may be used in certain countries to silence and intimidate human rights activists, religious dissenters, and other independent voices;

Alarmed by the resolution on “defamation of religions” recently tabled at the current 10th session of the UN Human Rights Council;

Alarmed by the draft resolution on freedom of expression circulated by Egypt, whose amendments seek to restrict, not promote, protections for free speech;

Alarmed by the recently-announced initiative of the U.N. “Ad Hoc Committee on Complementary Standards” to amend the International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) by adding a protocol on “defamation of religions”;

Alarmed by provisions in the latest draft outcome document of the Durban Review Conference that, through coded language and veiled references, endorse and encourage these anti-democratic initiatives;

1. Call upon all governments to oppose the “defamation of religions” resolution currently tabled at the UN Human Rights Council, and the objectionable provisions of the freedom of expression resolution;

2. Call upon all governments to resist the efforts of the “Ad Hoc Committee on Complementary Standards” to alter the ICERD;

3. Call upon all governments not to accept or legitimize a Durban Review Conference outcome that directly or indirectly supports the “defamation of religions” campaign at the expense of basic freedoms and individual human rights.

1. UN Watch
2. International Humanist and Ethical Union
3. Freedom House
4. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
5. Centre for Political Studies (CEPOS)
6. Muslim Council of Canada
7. International Association of Prosecutors
8. World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission
9. Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty (Italy)
10. The International Quranic Center (IQC)
11. International Press Institute (IPI)
12. Human Rights Without Frontiers International
13. Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme (LICRA)
14. Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)
15. American Islamic Congress
16. World Union of Progressive Judaism
17. United Nations Association of Mauritius
18. World Jewish Congress
19. Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI)
20. Association for World Education
21. Association of World Citizens
22. International Publishers Association
23. The Institute for African Alternatives
24. International Jurist Organization
25. Frontiers Association (Lebanon)
26. International Association for the Defense of Religious Liberty
27. Rationalist Association
28. Greek Helsinki Monitor
29. British Humanist Association
30. Sidmennt Ethical Humanist Association
31. National Secular Society
32. B’nai B’rith International
33. International Foundation for Population and Development
34. North London Humanist Group
35. Endeavour Forum Inc.
36. Association Suisse des Libres Penseurs
37. Humanist Academy of Scotland
38. Media Institute of Southern Africa (Regional Secretariat and its chapters in 11 SADC countries)
39. American Humanist Association
40. Darfur Peace And Development Centre
41. American Atheists
42. Media Institute (Kenya)
43. Union of Freethinkers
44. Maharat Foundation (Lebanon)
45. Open Doors USA
46. Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji)
47. One Law for All Campaign
48. Organisation against Women’s Discrimination (Iran)
49. The DiaHumanism Institute
50. Women's international Zionist Organization (WIZO)
51. Canadian Humanist Publications
52. Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS-Azerbaijan)
53. Indian Humanist Union
54. The Tandem Project
55. Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
56. International Committee to Protect Freethinkers
57. Center for Security Policy
58. World Citizens Foundation
59. South Sudan Movement in Disapora
60. International PEN Writers in Prison Committee
61. Atheist Foundation of Australia
62. Minority Rights Group (Greece)
63. Nigerian Humanist Movement
64. National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ)
65. Social Development Foundation (India)
66. Swedish Humanist Association
67. Rationalist Forum of Hyderabad (India)
68. Manava Vikasa Vedika (India)
69. European Union of Jewish Students
70. Centre for Study of Society and Secularism ( India)
71. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention
72. North East Humanists
73. Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (ABRAJI)
74. Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies (CEHURDES-Nepal)
75. New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists
76. Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina (CADAL)
77. International Council of Jewish Women
78. Humanist Canada
79. NGO Forum (Mauritius)
80. European Humanist Federation
81. Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM-Serbia)
82. Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations
83. Burgerbewegung Pax Europa
84. Media Watch (Bangladesh)
85. Finnish Humanist Union
86. Humanist and Ethical Union of Kenya
87. Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI-Egypt)
88. American Jewish Congress
89. Atheist Centre Andhra Pradesh (India)
90. Spurthi Dalit Humanist organisation (India)
91. German Forum for Human Rights
92. Jihad Watch
93. Rationalist Association of NSW
94. Adhra Pradesh Rationalist Association (India)
95. Satya Shodhak Sabha, Gujerat (India)
96. Arab Archives Institute (AAI-Jordan)
97. Open Doors International
98. Council of Australian Humanist Societies
99. Jubilee Campaign USA
100. Simon Wiesenthal Centre
101. Humanist Society of Queensland
102. Algerian Centre for the Defence and Promotion of Press Freedom (CALP)
103. Atheist Alliance International
104. CWA, Switzerland
105. Rationalist Society of Australia
106. Media Rights Agenda (MRA-Nigeria)
107. Humanist Society of New Zealand
108. Consultative Council of Jewish Organisations
109. Center for Inquiry, Low Countries
110. Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers
111. World Union of Jewish Students
112. Humanist Association of Northern Ireland
113. Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS-Venezuela)
114. Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute
115. Humanist Association of Ottawa
116. Center for Media Studies and Peace Building (CEMESP-Liberia)
117. Liberté de Conscience (Luxembourg)
118. Syria Reform Party
119. The Free Press Society (Denmark)
120. International Free Press Society
121. Muslims Against Sharia
122. Centre for the Study of Social Change (India)
123. Danish Atheist Society
124. Mouvement Pour la Paix et Contre le Terrorisme
125. Minnesota Atheists
126. Free Media Movement (FMM-Sri Lanka)
127. Cultural Bridges
128. American Ethical Union
129. Hotline Human Rights (Bangladesh)
130. Trinidad and Tobago Humanist Association
131. Women's Missionary Society AME Church
132. Unie Vrijzinniger Vereningingen (Belgium)
133. Humanistisch Verbond
134. Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands
135. Montagnard Foundation, Inc.
136. Humanist Association of Ireland
137. United American Committee
138. Humanistiche Vrijzinnige Vereniging (Belgium)
139. Quadlibet Strategic Ventures NFP
140. Netradana Protsahaka Sangam (India)
141. Human Rights Service (Norway)
142. Pink Triangle Trust
143. Gujerat Mumbai Rationalist Association
144. Southern California Ecumenical Council
145. Viveka Vidyalayam (India)
146. International Christian Concern
147. The International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA)
148. International Multiracial Shared Cultural Organization
149. Disha Dalit Humanist organization (India)
150. European Union of Public Relations
151. Socio-political Analysis and Research Organization (India)
152. Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
153. Jana Vignana Vedika (India)
154. Society of Catholic Social Scientists
155. Society for Humanism and Social Change (India)
156. Evangelical Alliance UK
157. Indian Radical Humanist Association
158. Fondation Genereuse Developpement (FGD-Cameroon)
159. Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association
160. Center for Inquiry International
161. Swedish Youth Humanist Association
162. Religious Freedom Coalition
163. Act for America
164. Belfast Humanist Group
165. Council of ex-Muslims of Britain
166. Unione degli Atei e degli Agnostici Razionalisti (Italy)
167. Secular Student Alliance
168. Summit Ministries
169. Doha Centre for Media Freedom (Qatar)
170. Zionist Federation of Sweden
171. Sydney Atheists
172. Adil Soz, International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech (Kazakhstan)
173. European Network Church on the Move
174. Traditional Values Coalition
175. Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
176. Humanist Society of Queensland
177. Jewish Human Rights Coalition (UK)
178. Redeem the Vote
179. Pray in Jesus Name Project
180. Humanist Society of Victoria
181. Index on Censorship
182. Unity Coalition for Israel
183. Sociedad Humanista-etica, Deodoro Roca (Argentina)
184. Secular Party of Australia
185. India Committee of the Netherlands
186. Humanistische Alliatie (Netherlands)
187. Norwegian PEN
188. International Federation of Liberal Youth
189. Hope for Africa International
190. All India Christian Council
191. American Coptic Associations
192. National American Coptic Assembly
193. Advocates International
194. American Islamic Forum for Democracy
195. American Maronite Union
196. American Textbook Council
197. International Media Lawyers Association (IMLA)
198. Australia - New Zealand Secular Association
199. Centre d' Action Laique
200. Coalition for Defence of Human Rights in the Muslim World
201. Foundation for Democracy in Iran
202. Middle East Christian Committee (MASREQ)
203. Norwegian Humanist Association
204. Skeptics Australia
205. Society for Humanistic Judaism
206. World Maronite Union
207. Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America
208. Centre for the Defence of Human Rights & Democracy in Africa (CDHRDA-Nigeria)
209. The Legal Project at the Middle East Forum


If your NGO wishes to sign the statement, please email us at civsoc@unwatch.org.

Something funny and reasonably clever: Top 10 Atheist Billboard Ads

I hate the music, but hey, check it out. Youtube has a video offering the 'top 10' atheist billboard ads. Some are more clever than others, check em out for a laugh.

Incontrovertible evidence of health care professionals' participation in torture

In case you have not yet seen this document, check it out. It's a confidential report by the International Committee of the Red Cross documenting torture on a number of inmates in CIA torture camps.

Importantly, the report also documents health care professionals' participation in the described cases of torture. It's a pretty grueling piece to read, but that's probably all the more reason to check it out!

Update on alleged homophobnia @ Canadian college

Just a brief up-date on the story about the alleged homophobia at the Canadian college. People on various blogs pointed out that the story in question might not have been true, particularly the alleged homophobic email by the faculty member in question. The sender address (ie the faculty member's) seems to have been copied (using Photoshop or some such program) on top of the offending message. When I tried to check the message in question myself, in order to follow-up on internet detectives claiming fraud, the student alleging homophobia had removed the file in question. This suggests quite strongly that she made the whole story up, why else would she remove the file that would demonstrate that her claim about homophobia at the college is correct?

Justice has been served: Johnson Aziga found guilty of first degree murder

After bad news from Canada (see posting below), here's some good news. Johnson Aziga was found guilty of first degree murder charges. Aziga, you may or may not know, is an HIV positive guy who continued to have unsafe sex with a substantial number of women. Some of these women eventually seroconverted, at least two died on AIDS as a result of their infection. In a precedent setting trial Aziga was found guilty both of first degree murder as well as 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault. Seven of the eleven women he had unsafe sex with became infected, two of whom died. I have commented on this issue some time ago in the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, as well as the International Journal of Law in Context.

Madonna's children

I'm fascinated by the rich and famous' child buying sprees in developing countries. Here's what fascinates me: The kids that they tend to take out of - usually lousy - orphanages are beyond reasonable doubt better off by being raised by a very wealthy person such as Madonna (or more to the point, likely by the people she pays to bring up her biological as well as adopted children). I would not be so certain when it comes to less well adapted stars - say, like Michael Jackson. So, in a way all the drama and bickering surrounding Madonna's adoption plans seems completely out of place. The net effect of these folks' adoptions is positive. The children in question will be better off, and, in Madonna's case, her biological children might also benefit from being brought up in a mixed-ethnicity environment. Seems good news all round.

And yet, I have some nagging doubt along these lines: If Madonna and folks like her really cared that much about impoverished kids in developing countries, instead of wasting a lot of their money to bring up just one or two (and adjust them to their own decadent lives), why can't they do something slightly more useful. Slightly more useful? As in: like Oprah has done with her South African girls' school. The same resources Madonna deploys to buy herself another third world child could arguably help many more kids in that same part of the world if they were deployed differently.

It seems, in other words, as if Madonna's motives are a tad bit more selfish than just wanting to help an impoverished kid live a good life. However, it's also true that we usually don't bicker too much about rich people spending their resources in a less than perfect manner (Oprah cruising in her private jet to South Africa to check out her school is a case in point - I have not heard anyone crying 'wasteful'). We accept that they're entitled to spend their money as they see fit, especially if it goes to good causes.

What's fair to say though, it seems to me, is that Madonna could indeed have done better. It's also fair to say that her intentions are probably not as selfless as she would like them to appear. And still: it is unfortunate that the Malawian court did not permit her to adopt the child she planned to purchase. That child would have been better off as a result of her actions, and nobody would have been any worse off.

On a personal note, I trust regular readers of this blog will be pleased to know that I seem to have at least a superficial knowledge of popular culture.

AMA investigates JAMA Editors' actions

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the American Medical Association, the owner of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), has ordered its oversight committee to investigate claims that the journal's editors effectively bullied a scientist critical of a study it published. Read more about the background of the matter here and here.