54 found
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  1.  13
    Embryology, Epigenesis and Evolution: Taking Development Seriously.Jason Scott Robert - 2004 - Cambridge University Press.
    Historically, philosophers of biology have tended to sidestep the problem of development by focusing primarily on evolutionary biology and, more recently, on molecular biology and genetics. Quite often too, development has been misunderstood as simply, or even primarily, a matter of gene activation and regulation. Nowadays a growing number of philosophers of science are focusing their analyses on the complexities of development, and in Embryology, Epigenesis and Evolution Jason Scott Robert explores the nature of development against current trends in biological (...)
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  2. Crossing species boundaries.Jason Scott Robert & Françoise Baylis - 2003 - American Journal of Bioethics 3 (3):1 – 13.
    This paper critically examines the biology of species identity and the morality of crossing species boundaries in the context of emerging research that involves combining human and nonhuman animals at the genetic or cellular level. We begin with the notion of species identity, particularly focusing on the ostensible fixity of species boundaries, and we explore the general biological and philosophical problem of defining species. Against this backdrop, we survey and criticize earlier attempts to forbid crossing species boundaries in the creation (...)
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  3.  50
    The ethos and ethics of translational research.Jane Maienschein, Mary Sunderland, Rachel A. Ankeny & Jason Scott Robert - 2008 - American Journal of Bioethics 8 (3):43 – 51.
    Calls for the “translation” of research from bench to bedside are increasingly demanding. What is translation, and why does it matter? We sketch the recent history of outcome-oriented translational research in the United States, with a particular focus on the Roadmap Initiative of the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD). Our main example of contemporary translational research is stem cell research, which has superseded genomics as the translational object of choice. We explore the nature of and obstacles to translational research (...)
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  4. The inevitability of genetic enhancement technologies.Francoise Baylis & Jason Scott Robert - 2004 - Bioethics 18 (1):1–26.
    We outline a number of ethical objections to genetic technologies aimed at enhancing human capacities and traits. We then argue that, despite the persuasiveness of some of these objections, they are insufficient to stop the development and use of genetic enhancement technologies. We contend that the inevitability of the technologies results from a particular guiding worldview of humans as masters of the human evolutionary future, and conclude that recognising this worldview points to new directions for ethical thinking about genetic enhancement (...)
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  5.  61
    Bridging the gap between developmental systems theory and evolutionary developmental biology†.Jason Scott Robert, Brian K. Hall & Wendy M. Olson - 2001 - Bioessays 23 (10):954-962.
    Many scientists and philosophers of science are troubled by the relative isolation of developmental from evolutionary biology. Reconciling the science of development with the science of heredity preoccupied a minority of biologists for much of the twentieth century, but these efforts were not corporately successful. Mainly in the past fifteen years, however, these previously dispersed integrating programmes have been themselves synthesized and so reinvigorated. Two of these more recent synthesizing endeavours are evolutionary developmental biology and developmental systems theory. While the (...)
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  6.  26
    The Inevitability of Genetic Enhancement Technologies.FranÇoise Baylis & Jason Scott Robert - 2004 - Bioethics 18 (1):1-26.
    ABSTRACT We outline a number of ethical objections to genetic technologies aimed at enhancing human capacities and traits. We then argue that, despite the persuasiveness of some of these objections, they are insufficient to stop the development and use of genetic enhancement technologies. We contend that the inevitability of the technologies results from a particular guiding worldview of humans as masters of the human evolutionary future, and conclude that recognising this worldview points to new directions for ethical thinking about genetic (...)
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  7. How developmental is evolutionary developmental biology?Jason Scott Robert - 2002 - Biology and Philosophy 17 (5):591-611.
    Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) offers both an account of developmental processes and also new integrative frameworks for analyzing interactions between development and evolution. Biologists and philosophers are keen on evo-devo in part because it appears to offer a comfort zone between, on the one hand, what some take to be the relative inability of mainstream evolutionary biology to integrate a developmental perspective; and, on the other hand, what some take to be more intractable syntheses of development and evolution. In this (...)
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  8.  32
    Model systems in stem cell biology.Jason Scott Robert - 2004 - Bioessays 26 (9):1005-1012.
    Stem cell scientists and ethicists have focused intently on questions relevant to the developmental stage and developmental capacities of stem cells. Comparably less attention has been paid to an equally important set of questions about the nature of stem cells, their common characteristics, their non‐negligible differences and their possible developmental species specificity. Answers to these questions are essential to the project of justly inferring anything about human stem cell biology from studies in non‐human model systems—and so to the possibility of (...)
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  9.  87
    Part-human chimeras: Worrying the facts, probing the ethics.Françoise Baylis & Jason Scott Robert - 2007 - American Journal of Bioethics 7 (5):41 – 45.
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  10.  59
    Aristotle and Modern Genetics.Thomas C. Vinci & Jason Scott Robert - 2005 - Journal of the History of Ideas 66 (2):201-221.
    We assess Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes in relation to current research on the development of organisms. Our goals are four-fold: first, to present and critically challenge what has become an orthodox interpretation of Aristotle among biologists; second, to present and defend a more adequate account of organismal development; third, to elaborate and justify a novel account of Aristotle's natural teleology, one at odds with the orthodox interpretation; and fourth, to illustrate how our reading of Aristotle, if right, permits (...)
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  11.  73
    Systems bioethics and stem cell biology.Jason Scott Robert, Jane Maienschein & Manfred D. Laubichler - 2006 - Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 3 (1-2):19-31.
    The complexities of modern science are not adequately reflected in many bioethical discussions. This is especially problematic in highly contested cases where there is significant pressure to generate clinical applications fast, as in stem cell research. In those cases a more integrated approach to bioethics, which we call systems bioethics, can provide a useful framework to address ethical and policy issues. Much as systems biology brings together different experimental and methodological approaches in an integrative way, systems bioethics integrates aspects of (...)
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  12.  30
    Is risky pediatric research without prospect of direct benefit ever justified?Rebecca A. Martin & Jason Scott Robert - 2007 - American Journal of Bioethics 7 (3):12 – 15.
  13.  63
    Schizophrenia epigenesis?Jason Scott Robert - 2000 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 21 (2):191-215.
    I begin by examining how genetics drivesschizophrenia research, and raise both familiar andrelatively novel criticisms of the evidence putativelysupporting the genetic basis of schizophrenia. Inparticular, I call attention to a set of concernsabout the effects of placentation on concordance ratesof schizophrenia in monozygotic twins, which furtherweakens the case for schizophrenia''s so-called stronggenetic component. I then underscore two criticalpoints. First, I emphasize the importance of takingseriously considerations about the complexity of bothontogenesis and the development of hereditarydiseases. The recognition of developmentalconstraints and (...)
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  14.  26
    Rethinking Human Embryo Research Policies.Kirstin R. W. Matthews, Ana S. Iltis, Nuria Gallego Marquez, Daniel S. Wagner, Jason Scott Robert, Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, Marieke Bigg, Sarah Franklin, Soren Holm, Ingrid Metzler, Matteo A. Molè, Jochen Taupitz, Giuseppe Testa & Jeremy Sugarman - 2021 - Hastings Center Report 51 (1):47-51.
    It now seems technically feasible to culture human embryos beyond the “fourteen‐day limit,” which has the potential to increase scientific understanding of human development and perhaps improve infertility treatments. The fourteen‐day limit was adopted as a compromise but subsequently has been considered an ethical line. Does it remain relevant in light of technological advances permitting embryo maturation beyond it? Should it be changed and, if so, how and why? What justifications would be necessary to expand the limit, particularly given that (...)
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  15.  44
    Rereading Frankenstein: What If Victor Frankenstein Had Actually Been Evil?Jason Scott Robert - 2018 - Hastings Center Report 48 (6):21-24.
    As we reread Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at two hundred years, it is evident that Victor Frankenstein is both a mad scientist (fevered, obsessive) and a bad scientist (secretive, hubristic, irresponsible). He's also not a very nice person. He's a narcissist, a liar, and a bad “parent.” But he is not genuinely evil. And yet when we reimagine him as evil—as an evil scientist and as an evil person—we can learn some important lessons about science and technology, our contemporary society, and (...)
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  16.  62
    Continuous Deep Sedation in End-of-Life Care: Disentangling Palliation From Physician-Assisted Death.Tito B. Carvalho, Mohamed Y. Rady, Joseph L. Verheijde & Jason Scott Robert - 2011 - American Journal of Bioethics 11 (6):60 - 62.
    The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 6, Page 60-62, June 2011.
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  17.  40
    Response to Open Peer Commentaries on “The Ethos and Ethics of Translational Research”.Jason Scott Robert, Mary Sunderland, Rachel A. Ankeny & Jane Maienschein - 2008 - American Journal of Bioethics 8 (3):1-3.
    Calls for the “translation” of research from bench to bedside are increasingly demanding. What is translation, and why does it matter? We sketch the recent history of outcome-oriented translational research in the United States, with a particular focus on the Roadmap Initiative of the National Institutes of Health. Our main example of contemporary translational research is stem cell research, which has superseded genomics as the translational object of choice. We explore the nature of and obstacles to translational research and assess (...)
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  18.  29
    Systems Bioethics.Jason Scott Robert - 2007 - American Journal of Bioethics 7 (4):80-82.
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  19. The structure of evolution by natural selection.Richmond Campbell & Jason Scott Robert - 2005 - Biology and Philosophy 20 (4):673-696.
    We attempt a conclusive resolution of the debate over whether the principle of natural selection (PNS), especially conceived as the `principle' of the `survival of the fittest', is a tautology. This debate has been largely ignored for the past 15 years but not, we think, because it has actually been settled. We begin by describing the tautology objection, and situating the problem in the philosophical and biology literature. We then demonstrate the inadequacy of six prima facie plausible reasons for believing (...)
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  20.  22
    Should research administrators be regulated as carefully as researchers?Jason Scott Robert - 2024 - Bioessays 46 (6):2300196.
    This essay assesses the rationale for regulating research administrators as carefully as they regulate researchers. The reasons for such regulation are identical: protecting scientific integrity, ensuring responsible use of public funds, addressing the lack of effective recourse for victims, creating negative consequences for misbehaving actors, and addressing high incentives for misconduct. Whereas the reasons compelling us to regulate research administrators are obvious, counterarguments to administrative oversight are based on suggestions that the incidence and prevalence of cases of administrative misconduct are (...)
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  21.  45
    Developmental systems and animal behaviour.Jason Scott Robert - 2003 - Biology and Philosophy 18 (3):477-489.
    This is a critical notice of Evolution's Eye by Susan Oyama, focusing on developmental systems theory primarily in relation to the nature-nurture debates and the explanation of behaviour.
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  22.  40
    Toxic ethics: Environmental genomics and the health of populations.Jason Scott Robert & Andrea Smith - 2004 - Bioethics 18 (6):493–514.
    ABSTRACT Dealing primarily with implications rather than foundations, and focusing downstream at the expense of upstream prevention, mainstream bioethics is at a toxic watershed. Through an extended analysis of the Environmental Genome Project (EGP), we offer new tools from the philosophy of science and from critical epidemiology to help bioethics to move ahead. Our aim in this paper is not to resolve the moral and conceptual problems we reveal, but rather to outline ways to prevent such problems from arising in (...)
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  23.  65
    Gene Maps, Brain Scans, and Psychiatric Nosology.Jason Scott Robert - 2007 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 16 (2):209-218.
    Neuroethics to date has tended to focus on social and ethical implications of developments in brain science, especially in functional neuroimaging. Within clinical neuroethics, the emphasis has been on ethical issues in clinical neuroscience practice, including informed consent to neuroimaging; the development of ethical research protocols for functional magnetic resonance imaging especially, and especially in children; and the ethical clinical management of incidental findings. Within normative neuroethics, we have witnessed the more philosophical and/or social scientific study of the meanings of (...)
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  24. Molecular and systems biology and bioethics.Jason Scott Robert - 2007 - In David L. Hull & Michael Ruse (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  25.  33
    A Response to Commentators on "Crossing Species Boundaries".Jason Scott Robert & Françoise Baylis - 2003 - American Journal of Bioethics 3 (3):66-66.
    This paper critically examines the biology of species identity and the morality of crossing species boundaries in the context of emerging research that involves combining human and nonhuman animals at the genetic or cellular level. We begin with the notion of species identity, particularly focusing on the ostensible fixity of species boundaries, and we explore the general biological and philosophical problem of defining species. Against this backdrop, we survey and criticize earlier attempts to forbid crossing species boundaries in the creation (...)
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  26.  33
    Fastidious, foundational heresies.Jason Scott Robert - 2000 - Biology and Philosophy 15 (1):133-145.
  27.  24
    Moral Truthfulness in Genetic Counseling.Jason Scott Robert - 1998 - Business and Professional Ethics Journal 17 (1-2):73-93.
  28.  6
    How Blind Persons Perceive Sight-Restorative Technologies Matters More than We Know.Arielle Silverman & Jason Scott Robert - 2024 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 15 (3):179-181.
    In 2022, two surveys revealed important data about vision in the United States. According to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), over 50 million American adults reported they either “have...
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  29.  58
    (1 other version)Toward a better bioethics.Jason Scott Robert - 2009 - Science and Engineering Ethics 15 (3):283-291.
    It has been argued that bioethicists too often tend to represent the interests of scientists and not of the broader polity. Indeed, bioethicists seem predisposed to discard the voices and viewpoints of all but the cognoscenti . Focusing particularly on human pluripotent stem cell research, this commentary explores a variety of characterizations of bioethics and bioethicists in relation to forbidding science. Rather than proselytizing or prohibiting, bioethicists should work in partnership with scientists and publics to craft scientifically well-informed and morally (...)
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  30. Evo-devo.Jason Scott Robert - 2008 - In Michael Ruse (ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of biology. New York: Oxford University Press.
  31.  56
    Human dispossession and human enhancement.Jason Scott Robert - 2005 - American Journal of Bioethics 5 (3):27 – 29.
  32.  10
    Illich, Education, and the Human Genome Project: Reflections on Paradoxical Counterproductivity.Jason Scott Robert - 1998 - Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 18 (4):228-239.
    The Human Genome Project (HGP) brings genetics and genetic knowledge to the point of paradoxical counterproductivity. Population-wide genetic screens, replacing specific tests intended for and useful to those at risk, become counterproductive when the HGP's "normal human " defines everybody as at risk. More over, the knowledge generated by the HGP disables those whom it is meant to serve: We are rendered impotent as a laity, subject to expertise regarding the truth of our being. The standard response here is that (...)
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  33.  26
    Wild Ontology: Elaborating Environmental Pragmatism.Jason Scott Robert - 2000 - Ethics and the Environment 5 (2):191 - 209.
    I elaborate and critically evaluate the theses of "environmental pragmatism," especially as captured in a recent collection with that title. While I am hopeful about this new approach, I want nonetheless to make reparations for its shortcomings. The primary difficulty is that environmental pragmatists tend to express only implicitly the metaphysical commitments of, say, William James, and yet the claims of environmental pragmatism would be profoundly strengthened by direct appeal to James's metaphysics. The ecosystem approach is particularly amenable to characterization (...)
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  34.  32
    Introduction.Sahotra Sarkar & Jason Scott Robert - 2003 - Biology and Philosophy 18 (2):209-217.
  35.  15
    (1 other version)Editors' Introduction: Toward an Inclusive Health Ethic for Humans and Ecosystems.Elisabeth A. Boetzkes & Jason Scott Robert - 2000 - Ethics and the Environment 5 (2):143-151.
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  36.  34
    The Strange Case of the Humanzee Patent Quest.Brock Heathcotte & Jason Scott Robert - 2006 - The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 6 (1):51-59.
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  37.  23
    Rethinking Human Embryo Research Policies.Kirstin R. W. Matthews, Ana S. Iltis, Nuria Gallego Marquez, Daniel S. Wagner, Jason Scott Robert, Inmaculada Melo-Martín, Marieke Bigg, Sarah Franklin, Soren Holm, Ingrid Metzler, Matteo A. Molè, Jochen Taupitz, Giuseppe Testa & Jeremy Sugarman - 2021 - Hastings Center Report 51 (1):47-51.
    It now seems technically feasible to culture human embryos beyond the “fourteen‐day limit,” which has the potential to increase scientific understanding of human development and perhaps improve infertility treatments. The fourteen‐day limit was adopted as a compromise but subsequently has been considered an ethical line. Does it remain relevant in light of technological advances permitting embryo maturation beyond it? Should it be changed and, if so, how and why? What justifications would be necessary to expand the limit, particularly given that (...)
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  38.  6
    Bioethics: A Contemporary Introduction.Jason Scott Robert - 2015 - Routledge.
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  39.  31
    Constant factors and hedgeless Hedges: On heuristics and biases in biological research.Jason Scott Robert - 2003 - Philosophy of Science 70 (5):975-988.
    How does a complex organism develop from a relatively simple, homogeneous mass? The usual answer is: through the (context‐dependent) execution of species‐specific genetic instructions specifying the development of that organism. Commentators are sometimes skeptical of this usual answer, but of course not all commentators, and not always for the same reasons. Here I attempt to lay bare the logical structure of the usual answer through an extended analysis of the heuristics and methodological principles at play in the exploration and explanation (...)
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  40.  53
    Constant factors and hedgeless Hedges: On heuristics and biases developmental biology.Jason Scott Robert - unknown
    How does a complex organism develop from a relatively simple, homogeneous mass? The usual answer is: through the execution of species-specific genetic instructions specifying the development of that organism. Commentators are sometimes sceptical of this usual answer, but of course not all commentators. Some biologists refer to master control genes responsible for the activation of all the genes responsible for every aspect of organismal development; and some philosophers, most notoriously Rosenberg, buy this claim hook, line, and sinker. Here I explore (...)
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  41.  26
    Ethics, Biotechnology, and Global Health: The Development of Vaccines in Transgenic Plants.Jason Scott Robert & Dwayne D. Kirk - 2006 - American Journal of Bioethics 6 (4):W29-W41.
    As compared with conventional vaccine production systems, plant-made vaccines are said to enjoy a range of advantages including cost of production and ease of storage for distribution in developing countries. In this article, we introduce the science of PMV production, and address ethical issues associated with development and clinical testing of PMVs within three interrelated domains: PMVs as transgenic plants; PMVs as clinical research materials; and PMVs as agents of global health. We present three conclusions: first, while many of the (...)
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  42. Issues in genetic engineering.Jason Scott Robert & Franchise Baylis - 2008 - In Susan Jean Armstrong & Richard George Botzler (eds.), The animal ethics reader. New York: Routledge.
     
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  43.  6
    Stem Cell Politics: The NAS Prohibitions Pack More Bark Than Bite.Jason Scott Robert & Francoise Baylis - 2005 - Hastings Center Report 35 (6):15.
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  44.  24
    Stem Cell Research Oversight: Personal Reflections and Public Reasoning.Jason Scott Robert - 2013 - American Journal of Bioethics 13 (1):66-68.
  45.  53
    The comparative biology of human nature.Jason Scott Robert - 2008 - Philosophical Psychology 21 (3):425 – 436.
    Model organismism—the over-reliance on model organisms without sufficient attention to the adequacy of the models—continues to hobble our understanding of human brains and behaviors. I outline the problem of model organismism in contemporary biology and biomedicine, and discuss the virtues of a genuinely comparative biology for understanding ourselves, our evolutionary history, and our place in nature.
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  46. The Complexity of Bioethics, the Bioethics of Complexity.Jason Scott Robert - 2000 - Complexity 11 (2).
     
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  47. Taking Development Seriously: Toward a Genuinely Synthetic Biology.Jason Scott Robert - 2000 - Dissertation, Mcmaster University (Canada)
    The Human Genome Project is nearing completion, and shortly we will have access to the complete genetic sequence of an average human being. Hopes are high that the sequence will contribute profoundly to medicine in particular, but also to our understanding of our evolutionary past. Of course, detractors have long insisted that because the HGP represents a victory for formalism in biology, determining the function of DNA sequences will remain an outstanding problem for at least the next several decades. Moreover, (...)
     
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  48.  64
    Biology and Philosophy Special Issue for 2003 – Evolution and Development.Sahotra Sarkar & Jason Scott Robert - 2001 - Biology and Philosophy 16 (4):573-573.
  49. Biotechnology, bioethics, and the future: a review of Ronald Bailey’s Liberation biology: Ronald Bailey, Liberation biology: The scientific and moral case for the biotech revolution. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2005, 332 pp, $30.00 , ISBN: 1-59102-227-4. [REVIEW]Jenny Dyck Brian & Jason Scott Robert - 2008 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 29 (2):125-128.
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  50.  64
    Birth to Death: Science and Bioethics David C. Thomasma and Thomasine Kushner, editors Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xvi + 398 pp., US $54.95, $19.95 paper. [REVIEW]Jason Scott Robert - 1998 - Dialogue 37 (4):810-.
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