By KATIE THOMAS
The New York Times
Published: July 24, 2013
Representatives of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies pledged on Wednesday to release detailed data about their drugs to outside researchers, a move that was applauded by some but also seen as an effort to head off more extensive disclosure requirements that are under review in Europe.
The announcement, made jointly by the two major pharmaceutical trade groups in the United States and Europe, signals a shift for the industry, which in the past has resisted calls to systematically share its data. The proposal was unanimously approved by member companies and is to take effect on Jan. 1. It would apply to all new drugs and all new uses for existing drugs, whether approved in the United States or the European Union.
The entire story is here.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Is income inequality 'morally wrong'?
By John Sutter
CNN
Originally posted July 25, 2013
Here are some excerpts:
CNN
Originally posted July 25, 2013
Here are some excerpts:
So is extreme inequality amoral?
To think this through, I called up four smart people -- Nigel Warburton, a freelance philosopher and writer, and host of the (wonderful) Philosophy Bites podcast; Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of "Wealth and Justice"; Thomas Pogge, director of the Global Justice Program at Yale; and Kentaro Toyama, researcher at the University of California at Berkeley.
(cut)
I'll end this list back on John Rawls, the philosopher whose 1971 book, "A Theory of Justice," is a must-read (or at least a must-become-familiar-with) for people interested in this topic. One of Rawls' theories is that inequality can be justified only when it benefits everyone in society, particularly those who are most poor and vulnerable.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
The Moral Instinct
By Steven Pinker
The New York Times Magazine
Originally published January 13, 2008 (and still relevant)
Here are some excerpts:
The starting point for appreciating that there is a distinctive part of our psychology for morality is seeing how moral judgments differ from other kinds of opinions we have on how people ought to behave. Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch, and when it is on, a distinctive mind-set commandeers our thinking. This is the mind-set that makes us deem actions immoral (“killing is wrong”), rather than merely disagreeable (“I hate brussels sprouts”), unfashionable (“bell-bottoms are out”) or imprudent (“don’t scratch mosquito bites”).
The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal. Prohibitions of rape and murder, for example, are felt not to be matters of local custom but to be universally and objectively warranted. One can easily say, “I don’t like brussels sprouts, but I don’t care if you eat them,” but no one would say, “I don’t like killing, but I don’t care if you murder someone.”
The other hallmark is that people feel that those who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished. Not only is it allowable to inflict pain on a person who has broken a moral rule; it is wrong not to, to “let them get away with it.” People are thus untroubled in inviting divine retribution or the power of the state to harm other people they deem immoral. Bertrand Russell wrote, “The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell.”
We all know what it feels like when the moralization switch flips inside us — the righteous glow, the burning dudgeon, the drive to recruit others to the cause.
The entire article is here.
The New York Times Magazine
Originally published January 13, 2008 (and still relevant)
Here are some excerpts:
The starting point for appreciating that there is a distinctive part of our psychology for morality is seeing how moral judgments differ from other kinds of opinions we have on how people ought to behave. Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch, and when it is on, a distinctive mind-set commandeers our thinking. This is the mind-set that makes us deem actions immoral (“killing is wrong”), rather than merely disagreeable (“I hate brussels sprouts”), unfashionable (“bell-bottoms are out”) or imprudent (“don’t scratch mosquito bites”).
The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal. Prohibitions of rape and murder, for example, are felt not to be matters of local custom but to be universally and objectively warranted. One can easily say, “I don’t like brussels sprouts, but I don’t care if you eat them,” but no one would say, “I don’t like killing, but I don’t care if you murder someone.”
The other hallmark is that people feel that those who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished. Not only is it allowable to inflict pain on a person who has broken a moral rule; it is wrong not to, to “let them get away with it.” People are thus untroubled in inviting divine retribution or the power of the state to harm other people they deem immoral. Bertrand Russell wrote, “The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell.”
We all know what it feels like when the moralization switch flips inside us — the righteous glow, the burning dudgeon, the drive to recruit others to the cause.
The entire article is here.
Embattled head of American Academy of Arts and Sciences to resign
By Todd Wallack | GLOBE STAFF JULY 26, 2013
Dogged by charges that she inflated her resume and abused her position, the embattled president of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences agreed to resign at the end of the month, the institution announced Thursday, ending weeks of controversy that had engulfed the organization and threatened to tarnish its reputation.
Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, who has overseen the Cambridge honorary society for the past 17 years, had been on paid leave from the academy for more than a month while an outside law firm investigated allegations, first reported by the Globe, that she falsely claimed to have a doctorate from New York University and misstated her work history in federal grant applications.
Berlowitz, 69, also came under fire for berating staffers and receiving an oversized pay package — more than $598,000 in fiscal 2012 alone for an organization with only three dozen staffers. The attorney general’s office also asked whether the academy fully reported all her executive perks, such as first-class travel.
The entire story is here.
Dogged by charges that she inflated her resume and abused her position, the embattled president of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences agreed to resign at the end of the month, the institution announced Thursday, ending weeks of controversy that had engulfed the organization and threatened to tarnish its reputation.
Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, who has overseen the Cambridge honorary society for the past 17 years, had been on paid leave from the academy for more than a month while an outside law firm investigated allegations, first reported by the Globe, that she falsely claimed to have a doctorate from New York University and misstated her work history in federal grant applications.
Berlowitz, 69, also came under fire for berating staffers and receiving an oversized pay package — more than $598,000 in fiscal 2012 alone for an organization with only three dozen staffers. The attorney general’s office also asked whether the academy fully reported all her executive perks, such as first-class travel.
The entire story is here.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Jodi Arias Trial: The Importance of Forensic Psychology Guidelines
By MICHAEL J. PERROTTI, PHD
World of Psychology Blogs
I have served as a clinical and forensic neuropsychologist expert witness for over twenty years. It is of utmost importance that an even playing field be created in adversarial proceedings.
What is conducive to this is use of forensic guidelines as standards by all experts involved in a case.
The Jodi Arias trial depicts apparent omissions of important standards that could influence outcome of assessment. There was a lack of collateral interviews, which the Reference Manual for Scientific Evidence (RMSE) addresses.
In addition, there were other omissions that I believe are important to the outcome of the Jodi Arias trial.
The entire blog post can be found here.
Jodi Arias Trial: Teachable Moments in Forensic Psychology can be found on the Video Resources page of this blog
APA's Forensic Guidelines can be found on the Guides and Guidelines page of this site
World of Psychology Blogs
I have served as a clinical and forensic neuropsychologist expert witness for over twenty years. It is of utmost importance that an even playing field be created in adversarial proceedings.
What is conducive to this is use of forensic guidelines as standards by all experts involved in a case.
The Jodi Arias trial depicts apparent omissions of important standards that could influence outcome of assessment. There was a lack of collateral interviews, which the Reference Manual for Scientific Evidence (RMSE) addresses.
In addition, there were other omissions that I believe are important to the outcome of the Jodi Arias trial.
The entire blog post can be found here.
Jodi Arias Trial: Teachable Moments in Forensic Psychology can be found on the Video Resources page of this blog
APA's Forensic Guidelines can be found on the Guides and Guidelines page of this site
When the Patient Is Racist
By PAULINE W. CHEN
The New York Times - Doctor and Patient
Originally published July 25, 2013
Here is an excerpt:
The patient had suffered only broken bones, so after my evaluation I was happy to leave him to the orthopedic surgeons. When I expressed my relief to a colleague, he smiled. “I’m sure it freaked him out to have an Asian woman taking charge of his care,” he said after I had described the patient’s menacing tattoo and threatening reaction to me.
But then my colleague paused. “What you need to do is turn this into a ‘teaching moment,’” he finally said without the slightest hint of irony. “Sit down with the patient and educate him about racism.”
I remembered this colleague’s naïve remark, and the burly patient with the swastika tattoo, when I read an essay by Dr. Sachin H. Jain in a recent issue of The Annals of Internal Medicine on the medical profession’s attitude toward patients who discriminate against doctors.
Since Hippocrates, physicians have embraced the ideal of caring for all patients, regardless of who they might be. While the father of medicine struggled to be open-minded when it came to caring for slaves, doctors more recently have wrestled with caring for patients’ of different races, gender and sexual orientation. In 2000, the American Medical Association codified its opinion on the issue, issuing in its code of ethics a mandate that doctors could not refuse to care for patients based on any “invidious” discriminatory criteria like race or ethnicity.
The entire story is here.
The New York Times - Doctor and Patient
Originally published July 25, 2013
Here is an excerpt:
The patient had suffered only broken bones, so after my evaluation I was happy to leave him to the orthopedic surgeons. When I expressed my relief to a colleague, he smiled. “I’m sure it freaked him out to have an Asian woman taking charge of his care,” he said after I had described the patient’s menacing tattoo and threatening reaction to me.
But then my colleague paused. “What you need to do is turn this into a ‘teaching moment,’” he finally said without the slightest hint of irony. “Sit down with the patient and educate him about racism.”
I remembered this colleague’s naïve remark, and the burly patient with the swastika tattoo, when I read an essay by Dr. Sachin H. Jain in a recent issue of The Annals of Internal Medicine on the medical profession’s attitude toward patients who discriminate against doctors.
Since Hippocrates, physicians have embraced the ideal of caring for all patients, regardless of who they might be. While the father of medicine struggled to be open-minded when it came to caring for slaves, doctors more recently have wrestled with caring for patients’ of different races, gender and sexual orientation. In 2000, the American Medical Association codified its opinion on the issue, issuing in its code of ethics a mandate that doctors could not refuse to care for patients based on any “invidious” discriminatory criteria like race or ethnicity.
The entire story is here.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
The need for moral enhancement: TEDx
Julian Savulescu is an australian philosopher and bioethicist. He is Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Sir Louis Matheson Distinguished Visiting Professor at Monash University, and Head of the Melbourne--Oxford Stem Cell Collaboration, which is devoted to examining the ethical implications of cloning and embryonic stem cell research.
In his talk, Julian shows us that technology advanced rapidly but morality did not. Ethics and religions do not have the answers to the questions nowadays, also because the world - thanks to technology - is a completely different one than it was when moral rules were defined and written down. These rules need to be enhanced.
In his talk, Julian shows us that technology advanced rapidly but morality did not. Ethics and religions do not have the answers to the questions nowadays, also because the world - thanks to technology - is a completely different one than it was when moral rules were defined and written down. These rules need to be enhanced.
Restricting Temptations: Neural Mechanisms of Precommitment
Molly J. Crockett, Barbara R. Braams, Luke Clark, Philippe N. Tobler, Trevor W. Robbins, & Tobias Kalenscher
Neuron, Volume 79, Issue 2, 391-401, 24 July 2013
10.1016/j.neuron.2013.05.028
Summary
Humans can resist temptations by exerting willpower, the effortful inhibition of impulses. But willpower can be disrupted by emotions and depleted over time. Luckily, humans can deploy alternative self-control strategies like precommitment, the voluntary restriction of access to temptations. Here, we examined the neural mechanisms of willpower and precommitment using fMRI. Behaviorally, precommitment facilitated choices for large delayed rewards, relative to willpower, especially in more impulsive individuals. While willpower was associated with activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and inferior frontal gyrus, precommitment engaged lateral frontopolar cortex (LFPC). During precommitment, LFPC showed increased functional connectivity with DLPFC and PPC, especially in more impulsive individuals, and the relationship between impulsivity and LFPC connectivity was mediated by value-related activation in ventromedial PFC. Our findings support a hierarchical model of self-control in which LFPC orchestrates precommitment by controlling action plans in more caudal prefrontal regions as a function of expected value.
The entire article is here.
Neuron, Volume 79, Issue 2, 391-401, 24 July 2013
10.1016/j.neuron.2013.05.028
Summary
Humans can resist temptations by exerting willpower, the effortful inhibition of impulses. But willpower can be disrupted by emotions and depleted over time. Luckily, humans can deploy alternative self-control strategies like precommitment, the voluntary restriction of access to temptations. Here, we examined the neural mechanisms of willpower and precommitment using fMRI. Behaviorally, precommitment facilitated choices for large delayed rewards, relative to willpower, especially in more impulsive individuals. While willpower was associated with activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and inferior frontal gyrus, precommitment engaged lateral frontopolar cortex (LFPC). During precommitment, LFPC showed increased functional connectivity with DLPFC and PPC, especially in more impulsive individuals, and the relationship between impulsivity and LFPC connectivity was mediated by value-related activation in ventromedial PFC. Our findings support a hierarchical model of self-control in which LFPC orchestrates precommitment by controlling action plans in more caudal prefrontal regions as a function of expected value.
The entire article is here.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Mental Illness: It's Not in Your Genes
by KAS THOMAS
BigThink Blog
Originally posted JULY 21, 2013
Even before the Human Genome Project wrapped up in April 2003, scientists have worked overtime to find the gene or genes responsible for autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, ADHD, alcoholism, depression, and other ailments "known" to have major genetic components.
The problem is, many neuropsychiatric ailments that are assumed to have a major genetic component don't seem to have one.
More than a decade after the sequencing of the human genome, there is still no reliable genetic test for autism, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, or any other major neuropsychiatric disorder (except for Huntington's disease, for which there was already a test, prior to the Human Genome Project).
The entire story is here.
Thanks to Lamar Freed for this information.
BigThink Blog
Originally posted JULY 21, 2013
Even before the Human Genome Project wrapped up in April 2003, scientists have worked overtime to find the gene or genes responsible for autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, ADHD, alcoholism, depression, and other ailments "known" to have major genetic components.
The problem is, many neuropsychiatric ailments that are assumed to have a major genetic component don't seem to have one.
More than a decade after the sequencing of the human genome, there is still no reliable genetic test for autism, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, or any other major neuropsychiatric disorder (except for Huntington's disease, for which there was already a test, prior to the Human Genome Project).
The entire story is here.
Thanks to Lamar Freed for this information.
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