Suggested readings, 23 August 2020

Here are a small number of interesting articles I’ve read over the past week that I think are worth considering.

Lee McIntyre, “How To Talk to COVID-19 Deniers.” 18 Aug, Newsweek.

Five main tropes of science denial reasoning: 1 cherry picking evidence; 2 belief in conspiracy theories; 3 reliance on flawed "experts"; 4 insistence that science must be perfect; 5 illogical reasoning.

Zania Stamataki, “Is anyone safe from Covid-19? This is what we know so far about immunity.” 19 Aug, The Guardian.

A good summary of our current understanding of Covid-19 immunology.

Tomás Ryan, “Time to embrace zero-Covid policy.” 22 Aug, Irish Times.

Should Ireland consciously decide to live with Covid-19, or embrace a zero-Covid policy?

Timothy Garton Ash, “Belarus's struggle is a powerful reminder of the value of freedom.”21 Aug, The Guardian.

“I personally would love Belarus to become a liberal democracy, secure inside both the EU and Nato like its Baltic neighbours. But that will not happen any time soon, mainly because Vladimir Putin won’t let it, but also because there is currently no majority for it in the country itself. The Belarusian opposition wisely insists this is not a geopolitical struggle between Russia and the west”.

William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina, “Who Can We Trust With the Nuclear Button? No One.” 22 Aug, New York Times.
“Unsettling as it may be, Mr. Trump has the absolute authority to start a nuclear war. Within minutes, the president could unleash the equivalent of more than 10,000 Hiroshima bombs. He does not need a second opinion. The defense secretary has no say. Congress has no role. Yet it would mean the end of civilization as we know it.”

Tom Chivers, “What worms can teach us about the AI apocalypse.” 19 Aug, UnHerd.

Can we do more good in the world by donating resources to help alleviate global poverty or by reducing the chance of an AI apocalypse?

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Should We Use Neuroenhancement Drugs to Improve Relationships?

A version of this article was printed in Humanism Ireland , July-August, Vol. 147 (2014) L ove, it is fair to say, is probably the strongest emotion we can experience. It can come in many different forms: love of one’s parent, sibling, or child. Though most people consider romantic relationships—which include companionship, sexual passion, intimacy, warmth, procreation and child-rearing—as the most significant component of one’s life; and it is probably the thing we find discussed more than anything else in novels, films and music. Committed romantic relationships tend to occur within the institution of marriage—something that is ubiquitous to most, if not all, cultures. Indeed, relationships today, which are primarily love-driven, are not just confined to marriages, as many couples sustain relationships outside of wedlock. Being in a love-driven relationship is considered important for most people, as it contributes to happiness—something we a...

Is Adult Incest Wrong?

An version of this article was printed in Humanism Ireland , March-April, Vol. 151 (2015) Incest is something most people find morally objectionable and it's one of the most common of all cultural taboos. The British Medical Association’s Complete Family Health Encyclopaedia (1990) defines incest as “ intercourse between close relatives,” that usually includes “intercourse with a parent, a son or daughter, a brother or sister, an uncle or aunt, a nephew or niece, a grandparent or grandchild.” The Oxford English Dictionary ’s definition is a little broader: it doesn’t confine incest to just intercourse, but to “sexual relations between people classified as being too closely related to marry each other.” Most countries have some kind of law against incest—though consensual adult incest is not a crime in France, Spain, Russia the Netherlands, and a host of countries in South America. In England and Wales, however, t he Sexual Offences Act 2003 ...

A Critique of Abortion and Infanticide

Not many ethical issues are as vigorously fought over as abortion these days. Unsurprisingly, the standpoint of the different sides—put simply, those who are in favour of abortion and those that are against it—have not achieved much in shifting the beliefs of their opponents. Abortion was illegal in almost all western states until the late 1960s; in 1967 Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) changed its laws to permit abortion on broad social grounds. In the Row v Wade 1973 case, the United States Supreme Court held that women have a constitutional right to abortion in the first six months of pregnancy. Many other western nations like France and Italy have subsequently liberated their abortion laws. Ireland and Northern Ireland, however, have held out in opposition to this movement. Abortion in Ireland remains illegal under the 1861 Offences against the Person Act and in 1983 an amendment to Ireland's constitution states that an embryo, from the p...

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