Bioethics at Yale, Encyclopedic Edition

I just got my copy of the hefty new six-volume edition of the Encyclopedia of Bioethics. The Editor-in-Chief, Bruce Jennings, and two of the six Associate Editors (me, Mark Mercurio) teach at Yale. One of the two Consulting Editors (Joe Fins) is visiting at Yale this term. Another of the Associate Editors (Greg Kaebnick) is at The Hastings Center, with which Yale has a research alliance and a joint visiting-scholar program. Just sayin'.

Bioethics-y Things at Yale

Our Technology and Ethics group will be hosting Danah Boyd, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research, on Wednesday, October 10 at 4:15 PM at 77 Prospect St. (ISPS), room A002. Ms. Boyd will speak about "Privacy and Ethics in Big Data Research."

There are several great Yale-based exhibits on bioethics issues right now. The Sterling Memorial Library has a show called "The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies: Achievements and Challenges 1982-2012." The Cushing/Whitney Medical Library has its display, "Medicine at Work: A Selection of Instruments and Materials from the Medical Historical Library;" you can glimpse the collection here. The Yale Peabody Museum has an exhibit called "Big Food: Health, Culture and Evolution of Eating."

And then there's Ain't Gonna Make It: A Rockabilly Exploration of Death at the Yale Cabaret.

Enjoy!

Bioethics-y Things at Yale: Killer Kitty edition

On Thursday, September 27 at 4:15 PM, our Animal Ethics Forum will host its first-ever public lecture. Clare Palmer (Philosophy, Texas A&M) will speak on "Ethics, Conservation, and Animal Welfare: Wildlife and Outdoor Cats." Outdoor cats, you say? Well, yes, actually. Our little purring murderers are estimated to kill 4 billion animals a year in the US alone. We humans are having a huge environmental impact via our cats. Clare's talk will raise a number of tough issues: the tensions among animal lovers and environmentalists, the limits of our personal responsibility, the meaning of animal suffering.

The event is co-sponsored by the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and the Yale Divinity School.

Thinking About Fracking at Yale

This afternoon at 4, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies will host what looks like an excellent panel entitled "Hydraulic Fracturing: Bridge to a Clean Energy Future?" The panel will feature John Hofmeister, a former Shell Oil executive and CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy; Bill McKibben, an environmental journalist and founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org; Sheila Olmstead, a fellow at the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future; and James Saiers, F&ES professor of hydrology and a water chemistry expert. These people will not agree with one another.

Brad Gentry, director of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale and a member of the F&ES faculty, will be the moderator.

The event will be held in the Burke Auditorium of the Forestry School's Kroon Hall. Details are here. If you can't make it to New Haven in time, don't worry: you can watch the event via live-streaming video here.

This isn't a Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics event, but given the unusual breadth with which our Center reads the "bio" in bioethics, it's exactly our kind of issue. Hope you'll join me in watching!

Bioethicsy Stuff at Yale

Here are a few upcoming bioethical events at Yale, all of which are open to the public:

Our Jerome Medalie End-of-Life Issues group will hear Kenneth Goodman, PhD, FACMI, Bioethics Program Director and Co-Director University of Miami Ethics Programs, on January 10 at 5:30. Details here.

Our sister institution, Yale Med's Program for Biomedical Ethics, will hear Carl Elliott, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota, on "Fear and Loathing in Medical Research: How to Exploit the Poor," on January 10 at 5p.m. Details here.

Our Biotechnology in Agriculture group will hear Scott Deeter, President and CEO of Ventria Bioscience, on "Global Human Health Innovations From Plant Biotechnology" on January 12 at 4pm. Details here.

Our Perspectives on Aging group will hear Dr. Marianthe Grammas, Clinical Fellow, Internal Medicine/Geriatrics, Yale School of Medicine on January 12 at 9 a.m. Details here.

Bioethicsy Stuff at Yale

Our Animal Ethics group will hear Charles C. Camosy (Theology, Fordham) on the topic of Ethics and Other Animals: Common Ground Amidst Difference, on December 1 at 1pm.

Our Jerome Medalie End-of-Life Issues group will host Helen Stanton Chapple, PhD, RN, MA, CCRN, MT (Center for Health Policy and Ethics, Creighton) on December 6 at 5:30.

Our Technology and Ethics group will hear Aimee Vanwynsberghe (PhD Candidate in Philosophy, University of Twente) on A Framework for Integrating Ethics in the Design of Care Robots on December 7 at 4:15.

Locations and other details on all of these events are here.

Bioethicsy Stuff at Yale

November 15: Our Jerome Medalie End-of-Life Issues group and our Yale-Med sister institution the Program for Biomedical Ethics will co-host Richard Gunderman, MD, PhD, speaking on "Professional Lessons from the Bedside of My Dying Father." Details here.

November 16, 2011: Our own Robert Levine will continue his seminar series on the ethics of research on human subjects, concentrating this time on privacy and confidentiality, and on epidemiology, social and behavioral research. Details here.

November 17: Our Biotechnology in Agriculture group will hear the USDA's Mark Lipson speak on "Policy Frameworks for 'Coexistence' of Transgenic, Conventional and Organic Systems." Details here.

November 18, in San Francisco: Our sister institution the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology will have a luncheon before the American Academy of Religion meetings. That evening, the Forum will sponsor a showing of Journey of the Universe, followed by a discussion led by several of the filmmakers, including our own Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Details here.

November 19: The next meeting of our Perspectives in Aging group. Details here.

November 29: The next meeting of the Students' Medical Ethics Seminar Series (open to all Yale Nursing, PA and Med students). Details here.

Bioethicsy Stuff at Yale

A couple of things for folks who might be in New Haven: The Bioethics Center's sister-institution, the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale, is screening "Green Fire," a film on the life of environmentalist Aldo Leopold (author of "A Sand County Almanac"), tonight at 6. There'll be a reception and what looks to be a very fine panel discussion. Details are here. The event is being hosted by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (from which Leopold graduated in '09), with cosponsorship from the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, the Yale Divinity School, the Environmental Film Festival at Yale, and the Center for Humans and Nature. Another sister institution, the Program for Biomedical Ethics at Yale Medical School, is hosting an event on Transplant Ethics on Wednesday evening; details here. And finally, look at our front page to find out about Hal Herzog's Oct. 27 address to our Animal Ethics group on "Moral Inconsistency, Psychology, and Animal Ethics," and David Chalmers' November 4 talk to our Technology and Ethics group on "The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis."

Upcoming Bioethicsy Stuff at Yale

Two things to put on the calendar: First, Hal Herzog (Psychology, Western Carolina University) will speak to our Animal Ethics Working Group at 1 p.m. on Thursday the 27th at the Bioethics Center; his topic will be "Moral Inconsistency, Psychology, and Animal Ethics." Second (though it's a day earlier, I'm just writing this backwards), our sister organization, Yale Medical Schoo'ls Program on Biomedical Ethics, will host a conference on Transplantation Ethics on Wednesday the 26th, 5 p.m., in the Beaumont Room of Yale Med's Sterling Hall, above the medical library. Speakers will be Robert Truog and Norm Fost. Should be wonderful!

French Parliament at Yale

Jean-Sebastien Vialatte and and Alain Claeys, members of the French Parliament, visited the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics this week. They're in the US, visiting Boston, New York and Los Angeles (and Yale!) to find out what American scientists and bioethicists think about the ethics of neuroimaging. They came to us courtesy of Wendell Wallach, who runs our Technology and Ethics Working Group. (They'd originally hoped to meet with James Hughes and members of his Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET). James was out of the country, and graciously recommended they speak to Wendell, instead.) They arrived, together with a translator, a member of the Parliamentary office of Science and Technology, the Science and Technology rep from the French Consulate to the US, and at least two other staff, for a morning meeting with Wendell, myself, Carol Pollard and Mike Treder, Managing Director of the IEET. We had a wide-ranging and serious discussion about the ethics of imaging, the ethics of brain technologies more generally, the current political situation in the US around several bioethics issues from stem cell research to genetic medicine, the political status of the transhumanism movement, and more. All of which blew my mind, because I couldn't imagine the analogous US Congressional delegation to France, or anywhere else. To my admittedly rather amateur eye, our Congressional delegations to foreign destinations seem to be political events (chances to be seen and heard) rather than genuine investigations (chances to listen). Who in our Congress would actually ask, "I wonder what scientists and academics in France (or Germany or Sweden or Japan or the UK) think about this important issue?" And who, then, would actually go and ask, and listen?