It is argued by Lie et al in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics that an international consensus opinion has formed on the issue of standards of care in clinical trials undertaken in developing countries. This opinion, so they argue, rejects the Declaration of Helsinki’s traditional view on this matter. They propose furthermore that the Declaration of Helsinki has lost its moral authority in the controversy in research ethics. Although the latter conclusion is supported by this author, (...) it will be demonstrated in this paper that there is not such a thing as an international consensus opinion, and that the authorities used by Lie et al as evidence in support of their claim should not be relied upon as authorities or final arbiters in this debate. Furthermore, it will be shown that arguments advanced substantively to show that lower standards of care are ethically acceptable in the developing world, conflate scientific with economic reasons, and ultimately fail to bolster the case they are designed to support. (shrink)

Is it time to leave the non-professional aspects of personal life at the door and face patients as medical professionals and no more?Ever wondered about the appropriateness of Christian doctors displaying pictures of Pope Benedict, Muslim doctors displaying pictures of Osama son of Laden or former PLO leader Yassir Arafat, or gay doctors proudly flying the rainbow flag in their rooms? I suggest that we should be concerned about such display of religious, political, or other allegiance to non-professional causes in (...) loci of health care delivery.Let us take a step back, however, and ask why we seek health care professionals’ help or assistance. Our reasons have, of course, primarily to do with doing our fair share by way of enabling health care delivery services to achieve their primary objectives for being in existence, namely to ensure that we live as long as is feasible at as high a quality of life as is possible. While legitimate questions may be asked about acceptable trade-offs between length and quality of life, broadly speaking, that is what we expect health care providers to do for us. Importantly, we expect them to do so in a professional manner. This is very much in line with the historical roots of the idea of professionalism, meaning essentially to profess publicly to serve the public good.1 The public …. (shrink)

Avery’s et al. ’s 1944 paper provides the first direct evidence of DNA having gene-like properties and marks the beginning of a new phase in early molecular genetics (with a strong focus on chemistry and DNA). The study of its reception shows that on the whole, Avery’s results were immediately appreciated and motivated new research on transformation, the chemical nature of DNA’s biological specificity and bacteria genetics. It shows, too, that initial problems of transferring transformation to other systems and prominent (...) criticism of its results nurtured skepticism. Avery’s experiment was downplayed and neglected particularly by many of those scientists who worked in the new fields of biochemical and biophysical genetics, genetic phage, and TMV research. This was not due to the fact that the implications of the paper could not be connected to generally accepted knowledge. Contrary to a widespread belief, the assumed uniformity of DNA as opposed to proteins was not used as an argument against the validity of Avery’s et al.’s finding. The indifference rather reflected, among other things, the disciplinary gap between the chemically oriented microbiologists and the old and new geneticists who remained committed to genetic and physical methods (in particular x-ray studies) and clung to the assumption that proteins were the sole carriers of biological specificity. The responses to Avery’s et al.’s paper show how different research interests in the areas between microbiology, genetics, and biochemistry interacted with the prejudices, dogmas, individual farsightedness or short-sightedness, and scientific authority during a pivotal period of early molecular biology. (shrink)

Chemistry and biochemistry in Germany was notably affected by the dismissal and emigration of Jewish scientists. The expulsion of Jewish scientists aided to significantly reduce the international regard for German science, particularly in biochemistry, physical chemistry, and quantum chemistry, after 1945. In most cases remaining scientists adjusted quickly after 1933 to the new political circumstances, with a few exceptions. A number of them even actively supported the politics of National Socialism. This fact as well as the common stance to forget (...) the 12 years of National Socialist rule complicated the exchange of international scientific knowledge after 1945 and delayed affiliation of the weakened fields of research to the level of international research. (shrink)

Ullin Thomas Place died on 2nd January 2000 at the age of seventy-five. I had met him a little over three years earlier, in November 1996, during the annual 'Mind and Brain' symposium organized by Peter Fenwick and held at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. At that meeting Professor Place delivered a slightly shortened version of the paper reproduced here, in which he told his personal story — a pilgrim's progress? — recounting, as he put it, 'the history of (...) a thought process leading from an adolescent interest in mystical experience to an article entitled‘Is consciousness a brain process?’[Place, 1956] in which I argued for an affirmative answer to that question'. (shrink)

En vue d'une approche mystique de l'Apocalypse - qui n'est pas celle d'extases et de visions présumées - il faut tenir compte de la situation d'une expérience liturgique, du langage typique et du symbolisme de l'auteur qui réussit à communiquer ainsi un sens qui s'ajoute au discours conceptuel. On rencontre ainsi dans la première partie du livre le Christ ressuscité. Jean en a une expérience directe: la voix du Christ est «telle une trompette» et Jean se retourne «pour regarder la (...) voix»: l'expression symbolique, à première vue contradictoire, élève au-delà du niveau conceptuel, incitant à un contact face à face avec le Christ ressuscité qui parle, plus intense que celui des apparitions pascales et dans la ligne de la transfiguration. Dans la seconde partie, la «porte ouverte dans le ciel» met en contact avec Dieu «siégeant sur le trône» : l'auteur ne le décrit pas, mais il en inculque une expérience directe quand il affirme que le personnage assis sur le trône correspond, à le regarder, à l'aspect des pierres précieuses . Le Christ comme arnionsurpasse, par la présentation symbolique qui en est faite , le niveau conceptuel en ouvrant l'accès à une expérience directe: on perçoit que l'arnion, en tant que «au milieu du trône et des quatre animaux, au milieu des anciens» , exerce une fonction centrale dans l'histoire du salut; l'expression contradictoire, «un agneau se dressait qui semblait immolé» , inc. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper is aimed to explicate a recently emerging anthropological model of homo eudaimonicus from its secular framework perspective. Theoretical basis. Secularity is considered in three aspects with reference to Taylor’s and Habermas’ ideas: as a common public sphere, as a phenomenological experience of living in a Secular Age, and as a background for happiness to become a major common value among other secular values in the Age of Authenticity. The modifications of happiness interpretation are traced from Early Modernity (...) till nowadays. The preconditions of the contemporary appeal to Aristotle’s eudaimonic theory of happiness are elucidated. The main characteristics of homo economicus anthropological model and reasons for its collapse in the contemporary world are analyzed. Specificities of the contemporary interpretations of eudaimonia are described with reference to the works of MacIntyre, Haybron, Hamilton, Kekes, Melnick, and others. A moral foundation and a behavioral strategy of homo eudaimonicus model are expounded and the role of this model in the life of a contemporary individual person and society is revealed. Originality. For the first time in the Ukrainian philosophical discourse, it is shown how secular ethics enables the rise of a new homo eudaimonicus model within a sphere of secularity; and it is argued that homo eudaimonicus is the result of overcoming the values crisis. It is revealed how homo eudaimonicus along with being descriptive becomes also a normative model of a new effective behavior strategy of a contemporary person facing the current social, economic, political, and environmental challenges. Conclusions. According to the contemporary interpretation, happiness as eudaimonia is a combination of the good life and the meaningful life; it is a human flourishing in this world through the accomplishment of a person’s life plan in the sphere of secularity. Homo eudaimonicus manifests the overcoming of values crisis and the rediscovery of purpose and meaning, this time on the secular basis. Homo eudaimonicus implies the realization of a person’s project of a happy and fulfilling life through moral behavior and socially useful activities. (shrink)

Esthetics in Malay tradition and culture in relation to the influence of Islam in Riau Province.

Ingolf U. Dalferth studies the complexity of this procedure in three thought processes which deal with the central concepts in the Christian understanding of malum as privation (a lack of good), as evil-doing and as a lack of faith.

Starting in 2005, general logical metatheorems have been developed that guarantee the extractability of uniform effective bounds from large classes of proofs of theorems that involve abstract metric structures X. In this paper we adapt this to the class of CAT\)-spaces X for \ and establish a new metatheorem that explains specific bound extractions that recently have been achieved in this context as instances of a general logical phenomenon.