Dubler’s commentary focuses on knowledge of clinical medicine and “institutional savvy” as pieces of the skill set required of bioethics mediators. Here, I describe why, as a practical matter, such requirements are unlikely to be achieved by a meaningful number of aspirants. Simultaneously, I examine the reasons why Dubler’s criteria are inherently risk-laden and would be better addressed as a dialogue among experienced practitioners regarding the merits of alternative stylistic approaches, rather than as universal threshold criteria for the practice of (...) bioethics mediation. (shrink)

This paper presents reports on discussions among an international group of science and technology studies scholars who convened at the US National Science Foundation to think about data sharing and open STS. The first report, which reflects discussions among members of the Society for Social Studies of Science, relates the potential benefits of data sharing and open science for STS. The second report, which reflects discussions among scholars from many professional STS societies, focuses on practical and conceptual issues related to (...) managing, storing, and curating STS data. As is the case for all reports of such open discussions, a scholar’s presence at the meeting does not necessarily mean that they agree with all aspects of the text to follow. (shrink)

The traditional view of tax holds that consumption taxes fail tax the yield to capital, whereas income taxes do, leading to John Stuart Mill's criticism of the income tax as a "double tax" on wealth that is saved. A better analytic understanding illustrates that there are two types of consumption taxes. A prepaid consumption or (equivalently) wage tax indeed ignores the yield to capital. But a consistent progressive postpaid consumption tax gets at such yield, at the individual level, when but (...) only when the returns to capital are used to elevate lifestyles in material terms. Such a tax allows "ordinary" savings that move around labor earnings, in constant dollar terms, to different periods of an individual's life, such as times of retirement or heightened medical or educational needs. Because a progressive postpaid consumption tax falls on the yield to capital at the right time-when its use at the individual level becomes manifest-all other taxes on capital, such as capital gains, gift and estate, and corporate income taxes, can and should be repealed, in the name of fairness. Footnotesa I thank the editors, my research assistants Alex Baskin and Nina Kang, and the other contributors to this volume for their helpful comments. (shrink)

In mid-Victorian Britain, reconciling elite mathematical expertise with practical mechanical experience presented both engineering and social challenges. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the construction of the Westminster Clock at Britain’s Houses of Parliament. Realizing this scheme engendered the collaboration between Cambridge mathematicians George Biddell Airy and Edmund Beckett Denison, and the clockmaker Edward John Dent. Transforming theoretical mathematical drawings into physical apparatus challenged existing relations between conveyors of privileged scientific knowledge and those with practical experience of what (...) was, and what was not, mechanically possible. My article demonstrates how, within this project, physical models and devices provided material solutions to ambiguities over authority and social disorder in Victorian Britain. (shrink)

This case describes a recent iteration of the Ponzi scheme originated in 1920 by Charles Ponzi: creating a plausible investment, attracting investors, using the money from more recent investors to pay off earlier investors, and earning a substantial profit, estimated to be $15 million (worth $220 million today).1 While not as big as Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, as a result of which he was sentenced to 150 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $170 billion to his victims,2 (...) the Federal district court in Miami was asked to order Par Funding’s cofounders, Joseph W. LaForte and his wife, Lisa McElhone, to pay $337 million to Par Funding investors and to declare they engaged in a Ponzi scheme in defrauding those investors.3 Ultimately the Federal district court in Miami ordered Par cofounders to pay “$219 million in ‘ill-gotten gains,’ fines and interest so the funds can be used to help reimburse 1,200 investors who were duped into buying the risky, unregistered securities used to finance the high-fee loan company.”4 How LaForte and McElhone executed their scheme is an intriguing story which provides helpful insight into ethical and U.S. securities law principles. (shrink)

This paper assesses possible reasons why Hermann J. Muller avoided peer-review of data that became the basis of his Nobel Prize award for producing gene mutations in male Drosophila by X-rays. Extensive correspondence between Muller and close associates and other materials were obtained from preserved papers to compliment extensive publications by and about Muller in the open literature. These were evaluated for potential historical insights that clarify why he avoided peer-review of his Nobel Prize findings. This paper clarifies the basis (...) of Muller’s (Muller HJ, Sci 66 84-87, 1927c) belief that he produced X-ray induced “gene” mutations in Drosophila. It then shows his belief was contemporaneously challenged by his longtime friend/confidant and Drosophila geneticist, Edgar Altenburg. Altenburg insisted that Muller may have simply poked large holes in chromosomes with massive doses of X-rays, and needed to provide proof of gene “point” mutations. Given the daunting and uncertain task to experimentally address this criticism, especially within the context of trying to become first to produce gene mutations, it is proposed that Muller purposely avoided peer-review while rushing to publish his paper in Science to claim discovery primacy without showing any data. The present paper also explores ethical issues surrounding these actions, including those of the editor of Science, James McKeen Catell and Altenburg, and their subsequent impact on the scientific and regulatory communities. This historical analysis suggests that Muller deliberately avoided peer-review on his most significant findings because he was extremely troubled by the insightful and serious criticism of Altenburg, which suggested he had not produced gene mutations as he claimed. Nonetheless, Muller manipulated this situation (i.e., publishing a discussion within Science with no data, publishing a poorly written non-peer reviewed conference proceedings with no methods and materials, and no references) due to both the widespread euphoria over his claim of gene mutation and confidence that Altenburg would not publically challenge him. This situation permitted Muller to achieve his goal to be the first to produce gene mutations while buying him time to later try to experimentally address Altenburg’s criticisms, and a possible way to avoid discovery of his questionable actions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

The moral act consists of object, intention, and circumstances. The word intention, as commonly used, is often mistaken for the technical meaning of the word intention as employed by philosophers. This produces confusion in the description of moral acts. The common use of intention signifies motive, or one's reason for action. We commonly say that someone has a good intention even though what he or she does is wrong. For example, we describe someone who wants to alleviate suffering, and so (...) euthanizes a patient, as having a good intention. To the contrary, in the Catholic moral tradition, intention means an action that is done voluntarily and knowingly. A nurse who kills a patient has a bad intention because he or she acts freely and with knowledge. Alleviating suffering is indeed a good motive for action, but motives are formulated through deliberation prior to action. (shrink)

Drawing on rare sources, many of which have not previously been translated into English, the view of Piaget and his work that emerges in this book is very different from the atheistic view of Piaget that is commonly held in psychology and transpersonal psychology. In both his early and later career Piaget held to an evolutionary view of spirituality reminiscent of the work of Hegel and Bergson. The spiritual future could be precursed by the individual in this life through the (...) experience of "Immanence."Piaget underwent a spiritual emergency in adolescence, reported in early autobiographical writing, in which he encountered an array of experiences described in Eastern and Western mystical cannons. For reasons discussed in this book, Piaget attempted to conceal his spiritual inclinations while tacitly confirming them in informal exchanges. This book not only describes the spiritual aspects of Piaget's life and work, it also builds bridges to both the contemporary transpersonal project and to contemporary psychology, by extending Piaget's own ideas to shed new light on transpersonal psychology and transpersonal philosophy, and on the future orientation of general psychology. The book validates the transpersonal project by showing its concerns to be germane to psychology's most influential figure. The reader will learn as much about the history, present, and future of transpersonal thought as they do about Piaget. (shrink)

The question of embryo adoption remains unresolved. Dignitas personae expresses reservations about the practice, but does not reject it. A proper interpretation of Dignitas personae n. 19 shows that the Vatican does not hold that human embryo adoption is intrinsically immoral, but that the question of its morality depends on the circumstances that surround the practice. Embryo adoption as practiced today is often compromised by illicit cooperation with objectionable reproductive technologies; nonetheless, it is possible to identify a best case scenario (...) which may lessen or even eliminate these concerns. That best case is when a Catholic couple, who have not previously utilized in vitro fertilization to overcome a problem of infertility, adopt an abandoned embryo and choose to raise that child as their own. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.2 (Summer 2010): 329–347. (shrink)