ethics news & views

Water, a play, and a visiting professor:
Feb events for Science & Society

The Program in Science & Society is proud to welcome John Krige, Kranzburg Professor in the School of History, Technology, and Society at Georgia Tech, to Emory this semester. Krige is the third Nat C. Robertson Distinguished Professor in Science & Society. He has a intriguing interdisciplinary background, having been a physical chemist in South Africa before becoming a historian of science and technology.

Krige will be spending the Spring semester at Emory teaching the lead seminar, "Science, Technology, and Society" in our new minor in Science, Culture, & Society (SC&S). This new minor complements the Ethics Minor the Center for Ethics initiated a two years ago.

Center launches 'Student Think Tank' to plan, implement campus ethics events

This year the Center for Ethics will experiment with a new approach to its public events. In April the Center recruited a dozen student leaders to help it plan and implement undergraduate-oriented public programming for the 2004-2005 academic year.

Recruited students were drawn from:

• Ethics and Servant Leadership;
• Bridging Academics, Service, and Ethics;
• Science and Society; and
• Emory Living Wage Coalition (originally an EASL service project).

The diverse group of undergraduates also actively participates in student government and campus activist and service groups. At its initial May meeting, the Think Tank decided to focus its energies this year on the ethics of power, beauty/consumerism, professional ethics, and sexual orientation. Anticipated event formats will likely include film screenings, discussion forums, and student/faculty panels.

The group hopes to develop a major event tentatively titled “Sex, Shopping, and Self” for the spring semester.

Additional film screenings, workshops, and panels planned with the Student Think Tank will be publicized on campus and on the Center for Ethics’ website throughout the year.

April 9 | Genetically Modified Organisms: Our Genes, Our Future

Award winning geneticist, environmentalist, and educator David Suzuki, Nat C. Robertson Distinguished Professor in Science & Society, will participate in a symposium 10am to 3pm, April 9 in Cox Hall Ballroom. The symposium also features Steven Stice, University of Georgia cloning expert and biotech entrepreneur; Sam Dryden, CEO, Emergent Genetics, Inc.; and Sherry Knowles, intellectual property lawyer.

The event is free and open to the public but reservations are required.

April 7 | The Challenge of Sustainability: Setting the Real Bottom Line

Scientist, environmentalist, and educator David Suzuki will deliver a public lecture 7pm, April 7 in Winship Ballroom, Dobbs University Center. His presentation will focus on contemporary sustainability issues.

Suzuki is Emory's Nat C. Robertson Distinguished Professor in Science & Society. The author of more than thirty books, he is recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology. He is well known to millions as the host of the popular science television series, The Nature of Things.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please call (404) 727-6722. Sponsored by Emory College Faculty Science Council, the Program in Science & Society, and the Center for Ethics.

Me, my clone, and I: reflections on the Raelian 'clones'

Over holiday break the Raelians’ much publicized announcement that they had produced a human clone caught the attention of Center for Ethics faculty. Without producing any evidence, Clonaid—a company connected to the Raelians, a UFO cult that believes homo sapiens were created by alien geneticists—announced in a live, internationally broadcast press conference that they had successfully produced the first infant human clone. They have since announced as many as three successful clones. Citing concerns for the personal privacy of mother and child, they have continued to refuse to provide proof of their claims and reversed a initial decision to allow for independent verification. Center faculty’s correspondence follows below:

Reconciling science and society: Emory hosts undergraduate bioethics conference

By Tanya Williams, Scott Siera, and Arri Eisen
Adapted from an article to be published in The Journal of Philosophy, Science, and Law.

The Fourth National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference held at Emory University October 4-7th, 2001, marked a stage in the vital conversation between science and society. Over 100 students and 40 professionals representing more than 30 institutions gathered in Atlanta. The conference was the first of its kind to explore applied ethics across multiple disciplinary fields, while simultaneously permitting intellectual interaction among distinguished scientists, clinicians, faculty and students from universities across the country.

Science, Ethics, & Society Initiative to host national bioethics conference in October

Issues mixing ethics and biology paint our newspapers and television sets every day: How do we balance our need for energy with sustaining our environment? Should the federal government support stem cell research? How do we best test potential miracle drugs while ensuring that such drugs get to those who need them as quickly as possible?

A successful year for Science, Ethics & Society Initiative

Coffee, movies, magazines, conferences: folks had a fun and informative time this past year working with the Science, Ethics, and Society Initiative (SESI).

We closed out a year of successful Bioethics CoffeeTalks, in which Emory faculty met with 5-10 students (including undergraduates, as well as graduate, law, and medical students) to discuss hot issues in bioethics. Featured guests included Howard Kushner, discussing a recent case at Emory; Pat Marsteller on 'Dangerous Ideas on Campus'; Nick Fotion on medical testing abroad; Art Kellerman and Tammy Quest on ethical dilemmas for EMS (ambulance) crews; Tanya Sudia-Robinson on end of life decision making in the NICU; Bobbi Patterson on science and theology; and Ben Freed on primate conservation.

Science, Ethics & Society update

The Science, Ethics, & Society Initiative (SESI) has been excitedly working toward Emory’s hosting of the Fourth National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference on October 4-7, 2001. A core group of undergraduates, led by Scot Siera, has been developing requests for funding for the conference.

Former Merck CEO inaugurates Science, Ethics & Society Initiative

Last February a new joint initiative between the Center for Ethics and the Program in Science & Society of the Faculty Science Council brought world-renowned scientist and business revolutionary Dr. P. Roy Vagelos to campus to inaugurate an annual speaker series.

Our ethics, our biology: New Ethics, Science, and Society Initiative addresses 21st century

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most common disease of motor neurons in the human central nervous system; gradual loss of nerve cells eventually leads to respiratory failure and death. Scientists have already demonstrated that “gene therapy” can be used to prolong life in mice with ALS. If we can perform early, perhaps in utero, genetic testing for ALS and for all the rapidly growing number of genes that when mutant are known to result in early death, should we? Should we test without having a competent gene therapy protocol available? And if one becomes available, which is inevitable, should we employ it and prolong the lives of these children-to-be? The answers to these questions are clearly fraught with profound ethical, religious, scientific, and legal concerns.

[ Posted by Arri Eisen on September 01, 2000 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) ]