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Essays Commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics, March 2008

"Conservative bioethics' latest, most dangerous ploy." (Pinker)

Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology1 is a peer-reviewed and policy-focused journal that examines the ethical and legal issues that arise from emerging technologies. While much attention has gone to specific fields such as bioethics, this is the first journal to address the broad scope of all technologies and their impact on the environment, society, and humanity. Topics include biotech, nanotech, neurotech, IT, weapons, energy and fuel, space-based technology, and new media and communications. Articles explore the synergy between law and ethics, and provide a robust policy response to technology's opportunities and challenges.

"Advising the President on ethical issues related to advances in biomedical science and technology"

"New technologies enable scientists to understand, alter, and enhance our brains. These raise a host of policy-relevant questions about privacy, social and political coercion, access to technology and therapy."

"We are, undoubtedly, in the midst of a genetic revolution. It could well mean made-to-order babies or the creation of spare organs for transplant. Soon the question of bio-technology will change from "can we?" to "should we?" "

"The problem is that "dignity' is a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it. " (Steven Pinker)

"Professor of molecular biology and public policy in the Woodrow Wilson school of Public & International Affairs at Princeton University"

"In relation to our previous and well-visited post about oxytocin, we should mention a new study that uses this very substance in a neuroeconomic set-up. In the study, recently published by Neuron, and headed by Baumgartner et al., it was found that the administration of oxytocin affected subjects' in a trust game. In particular, it was found that subjects that received oxytocin were not affected by information about co-players that cheated." (BRAINETHICS)

"It is common parlance to equate the words 'person' with 'human'. That is perhaps because of all the creatures we know, we humans are those with the most obvious claim to personhood. But, what actually is a 'person'? We know that a person is a moral entity - someone, rather than something, but that just requires us to define a 'moral entity', so begs the question. This is a very vital question these days, as it relates to such issues as human embryo research, euthanasia, human genetic engineering and cloning, among others." (Human Enhancement and Biopolitics)

"Gazzaniga has been a vocal scientific voice on the council at a controversial time -- with President George W. Bush twice vetoing legislation on stem cell research; the limiting of U.S federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research to a restricted number of cell lines; and other debates." (All In The Mind)

"Moves to clone and genetically modify farm livestock have opened the door to the creation of "Farmyard Freaks", experts have warned. News that the daughter of a US clone cow has been born on a British farm has moved the issue from science fiction to consumer reality." (Mail Online)

"The president's call for a moratorium on human cloning has given us an important opportunity. In a truly unprecedented way, we can strike a blow for the human control of the technological project, for wisdom, prudence and human dignity. The prospect of human cloning, so repulsive to contemplate, is the occasion for deciding whether we shall be slaves of unregulated progress, and ultimately its artifacts, or whether we shall remain free human beings who guide our technique toward the enhancement of human dignity. " (Kass)

"In our strange and potentially very dangerous world where science fiction and Charles Darwin often collide, a handful of scientists are racing to be the first to create life. According to a flood of recent reports, this artificial life could be as close as six months away. "