Philosophy & Ethics

(Repost from one year ago on the older Genomicron -- this got a niceresponse from readers and family, so I am posting it once again.) In Canada, as in many countries around the world, November 11 is…

It seems like common sense, right?    We don't allow cigarettes on TV because the risk to impressionable younger people is greater than it is with adults.    Adolescents who have…

A system of presumed consent for organ donation - where people have to opt out of donating their organs when they die - is the best way to tackle a growing waiting list for transplant, according to…

The 2008 presidential campaign, as reflected in candidates' television spots, has been one of the most negative campaigns in history. A University of Missouri professor analyzed this year's…

Off-label prescription of a drug is generally legal, but promotion of off-label uses by a drug manufacturer is illegal. In an article in this week's PLoS Medicine, two physician researchers describe…

People tend to want to correlate more money to better results?  It doesn't matter if it's education or science or highways.   But it isn't always the case.   Expensive new medicines…

If a doctor believes an antibiotic or sedative is not needed and instead provides a placebo to a patient, is the physician protecting public health or subjectively disregarding the ethics of full…

Pierre-Simon de Laplace, the 18th century French astronomer who proposed one of the early theories of the formation of the solar system, famously postulated a “Demon” who had enough information…

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There was a time when being a journalist was a higher calling - and that higher calling was truth.    Somewhere in there it became well-known that journalists were a little more liberal…