Practical Ethics

Are falling house prices good or bad?

House prices have been falling quickly in both the US and, more recently, the UK. Newspaper reports tend to use negative language to refer to this fall. For example, todays edition of The Independent says:

Today's gloomy data, which is worse than economists had forecast, ...

However, it is not at all obvious that low house prices are a bad thing.

The world's failure to fulfill its goals

The Guardian reports that the world is not on track for meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal to halt and reverse the increase in Malaria by 2015. While the funding for malaria prevention has increased up to $1 bn per annum, this is not enough to meet the declared goal. Indeed, while the figure sounds high, it is only $1 per person at risk or 0.002% of world GDP, which is not much for one of the UN's major poverty reduction targets. Scientists at the Kenya Medical Research Institute estimate that 50% to 450% more funding is required to make the target. Sadly this situation with the malaria target is not unusual: the current estimates are that we will fail to meet every single one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Helping others to save the rainforest

The Congo basin rainforest is a natural resource of staggering scale, second only to the amazon in size. It stretches across six countries in the centre of Africa and provides shelter, food, income and fuel for millions of local people. However, like most of the world's remaining forests, it is being destroyed at an unsustainable rate. Like all the world's major rainforests, it lies in developing countries which are desperate for any small income it can provide. This adds to the sense of tragedy: these great resources are being destroyed for what is a relative pittance to conservationists in the rich countries. Happily, this tragic element is starting to be turned around and may give us our best chance at preserving the forest.

Betting on bad health (with inside information)

Personal DNA testing is here. For $1,000 you can send off a DNA sample to an american company and find out your genetic predispositions to a wide variety of illnesses and problems, from male pattern baldness to cancer. The Telegraph is running a story by a woman who has just ordered such a test and has seen her predispositions. The story makes many of the issues quite vivid and shows how one can use the bad news in such tests, say a predisposition to a certain illness, to make special efforts to guard against that illness, or at the very least to be ready for the effect it might have on your life. There is, however, a problem with these cheap, voluntary tests. It is not a problem for the individual taking them, but a problem for society.

The new asbestos?

Carbon nanotubes are tiny man-made fibers with an incredibly high tensile strength. They are one of the most promising nanotechnological developments with many potential applications in electronics, medicine and futuristic materials. However, a new study by a group of scientists from the US and the UK suggests that carbon nanotubes may cause health problems similar to those of asbestos. The problem comes from their similar shapes: both nanotubes and asbestos consist of hard microscopic fibers that can cause significant damage to the lining of the lungs. The study involved exposing mice to nanotubes and found that nanotubes of a certain size caused asbestos-like inflammations and lesions.

Lesbians and male role models

In Britain, the Conservative Party has challenged the government to block lesbian couples from receiving IVF treatment unless they can provide a 'male role model' for their child. This is part of a proposed amendment to the human fertilisation and embryology bill which is currently before the parliament. Such a change would be a very bad idea.

These are not the probabilities you are looking for

There has been an increasing buzz in the papers regarding the impending launch of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Some of this concerns the possibility that it will lead to a disaster which destroys the world. This certainly sounds unlikely, and people who seriously suggest this are typically brushed aside with official calculations about the chance that the LHC will indeed destroy the world in any of the ways that have been suggested. For example, it is said that the chance of it destroying the earth though the creation of a particle called a strangelet is only about 1 in 50 million and the chance of it creating a black hole which does not evaporate is much less than this. However, these are not the probabilities we are looking for.

Junk science reporting

Science constantly gives rise to new information, new technologies, and new ethical dilemmas. To keep abreast of such changes, we need good science reporting in the newspapers, television and online. However there is a fundamental disconnect between the way science works and the way the media works which leads to big problems in mainstream science reporting. This is excellently illustrated by two of today's news stories.

Killing the goose that laid the golden egg

The US government has just announced that it is likely to close its enormous Pacific salmon fishery, which stretches across 80% of the USA's west coast. The once vast salmon stocks have crashed and are now at a mere 6% of the long-term average. Many readers will remember the similar crash in the cod stocks off the east coast of Canada in the early 90s which led to great economic hardship in the area. The cause of both incidents is the same: overfishing. The Canadian and US fishing industries destroyed these vast renewable resources and in doing so have probably killed their very own geese of the golden eggs.

A child of many parents: a new way to have two mothers

The Guardian and Telegraph, are today reporting that British scientists have created ten human embryos which each include DNA from one man and two women. This was done by taking a one day old IVF embryo and removing its pronuclei (the parts containing the chromosomes from the parents). These were then inserted into an egg cell from the second woman, which has had its nucleus removed. The result is a new embryo with its primary DNA coming from a man and a woman, and the body of its cell coming from the second woman. This is an amazing experiment, and comes hot on the heels of other multi-parent experiments, but why has it been performed and what are the ethical implications?