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!

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

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."

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?